A Study Of Jacob Burckhardt’s Cultural History

Jacob Burckhardt is known as“the most prominent cultural historian”in the 19^thcentury and has outstanding achievements in the fields of cultural history,art history,and historical theory.He starts from the practice of cultural history and art history and emphasizes the relativity of historical understanding and the literary and artistic nature of historical knowledge while pursuing historical objectivity,which plays an important role in the development of both western cultural history and western historiography theory.The study regards Burckhardt’s cultural history as the breakthrough point and mainly studies it from the aspects of writing practice,theoretical method and historical position.In the introduction part,it introduces the origin of selecting the topic,research significance,research status at home and abroad,definition and explanation of relevant concepts,research methods,important and difficult points.The first chapter describes the historical background and academic background which forms Burckhardt’s view of cultural history.Burckhardt grows up in Switzerland in the first half of the 19^thcentury.During this period,major European countries including Switzerland successively completes the process of industrialization;under the influence of the French Revolution and Napoleon’s foreign wars,European history enters into the“revolutionary age”;due to the rapid development of capitalist political and economy,the development of western historiography enters its heyday,and the“century of historiography”comes.Burckhardt’s view of cultural history is the result of the above factors.In addition,the experiences of studying theology at the University of Basel,studying history at the University of Berlin,and serving as an editor of the Basler Zeitung also profoundly influences his views of cultural history.The second chapter examines Burckhardt’s writing practice of cultural history.Burckhardt successively writes The Age of Constantine the Great,the Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy,and the History of Greek Culture.The Age of Constantine the Great mainly discusses the decline and continuation of classical culture,and establishes the writing framework of Burckhardt’s cultural history.The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy continues to improve the framework and becomes a classic of Burckhardt’s cultural history.Burckhardt’s concept of the Renaissance mainly absorbed the viewpoint of Voltaire,Machiavelli and Michelet,which is revised to a great extent in the challenges of medieval historians,social historians and the new cultural historians,but always can’t be overthrown.The History of Greek Culture not only points out the pessimistic characteristics of Greek culture,but also tries to perfect the theories and methodologies of Burckhardt’s cultural history while following the framework of the first two works.The third chapter explains the theoretical connotation of Burckhardt’s cultural history.In terms of historical view,Burckhardt is deeply influenced by German historicism,and his three works on cultural history choose to start with one era,which not only pay attention to the particularity of each era’s culture,the diversity of culture in different times,but also emphasize the universality,unity and continuity of European culture.In terms of historical dynamics,Burckhardt on the one hand divides history into three potentials:politics,religion and culture,and the three potentials interact to form six kinds of restrictive relations under which human history evolves;on the other hand,Burckhardt attaches importance to the role of individuals especially cultural elites in history,and often reveals the thoughts of historical inevitability.In terms of the nature of historical knowledge,Burckhardt insists that history is the humanities different from natural science,and that the historical understanding is relative.At the same time,he considers history,literature and art are interlinked in nature,attaches importance to the role of intuitive imagination,and pursues the readability and the sense of picture of historical works.The fourth chapter discusses the research methods of Burckhardt’s cultural history.Burckhart’s study of cultural history mainly adopts the methods of historical material criticism,historical research with image,historical research with literature and dialectics.As a student of Ranke,Burckhardt is deeply influenced by the critical method of historical materials which is especially reflected in the Age of Constantine the Great,nothing but the influence of the critical method of historical materials on him gradually decreases.Burckhardt gradually forms his own unique methodology while downplaying the critical method of historical materials.On the one hand,he has a dual identity of cultural historian and art historian,so that he can use the information obtained from artistic images such as painting,sculpture,architecture to interpret history,that is“historical research with images”;on the other hand,he also uses literary works to restore the spiritual and cultural features of an era,that is“historical research with literature”.In addition,Burckhardt pays attention to the application of philosophy from the methodological level while opposing the direct application of philosophical concepts to history,which is mainly reflected in his application of dialectics.Through the above four research methods,Burckhardt’s cultural history brings history,literature,art and philosophy into his research field which well reflects the application of interdisciplinary methods.The fifth chapter puts the cultural history of Burckhardt in the development of western cultural history and summarizes its historical position.Burckhardt’s cultural history is descended from Voltaire and Herder.In terms of research tasks,it inherits Voltaire’s discussion of“spirit of the time”and Herder’s discussion of“national spirit”,and in terms of research methods,it inherits the cultural history since Voltaire’s emphasis on historical philosophy.Burckhardt’s cultural history follows by Lamprecht,Huizinga and Warburg.Lamprecht not only extends the phenomenon described by Burckhardt in the field of spiritual culture to the field of material production,which broadens the research scope of Burckhardt’s cultural history,but also enriches Burckhardt’s understanding of“individualism”and his application of interdisciplinary methods.Huizinga and Warburg inherites Burckhardt’s theoretical methods of cultural history while revising Burckhardt’s view of Renaissance.In addition,Burckhardt’s cultural history also has an impact on the new cultural history in terms of the ideological characteristics,understanding of the nature of historical knowledge,and research methods.The conclusion part points out the enlightening significance of Burckhardt’s study of cultural history for the deep understanding of the problems of Ranke and Burckhardt,the“cultural turn”and“beyond cultural turn”of contemporary western historiography,and the research of Chinese cultural history.