Magisterarbeit--Historisches Institut--Aachen--Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule, 1998. / Liste des oeuvres de J. Burckhardt. Bibliogr. p. 233-264. Index.

In the following study I reappraise the nineteenth century Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt (1818-1897). Burckhardt is traditionally known for having served as the elder colleague and one-time muse of Friedrich Nietzsche at the University of Basel and so his ideas are often considered, by comparison, outmoded or inapposite to contemporary currents of thought. My research explodes this conception by abandoning the presumption that Burckhardt was in some sense "out of touch" with modernity. By following and significantly expanding upon the ideas of historians such as Allan Megill, Lionel Gossman, Hayden White, Joseph Mali, John Hinde and Richard Sigurdson, among others, I am able to portray Burckhardt as conversely inaugurating a historiography laden with elements of insightful social criticism. Such criticisms are in fact bolstered by virtue of their counter-modern characteristic. Burckhardt reveals in this way a perspicacity that both anticipates Nietzsche's own critique of modernity and in large part moves well beyond him. Much of this analysis is devised through a genealogical approach to Burckhardt which places him squarely within a cohesive branch of post-Kantian thought that I have called heterodox post-Kantianism. My study revaluates Burckhardt through the alembic of a "discursive" post-Kantian turn which reinvests many of his outré ideas, including his radical appropriation of historical representation, his non-teleological historiography, his various pessimistic inclinations, and additionally, his non-empirical, "aesthetic" study of history, or "mythistory," with a newfound philosophical germaneness. While I survey the majority of Burckhardt's output in the course of my work, I invest a specific focus in his largely unappreciated Greek lectures (given in 1869 but only published in English in full at the end of the twentieth century). Burckhardt's "dark" portrayal of the Greeks serves to not only upset traditional conceptions of antiquity but also the manner in which self-conception is informed through historical inquiry. Burckhardt returns us then to an altogether repressed antiquity: to a hidden, yet internal "dream of a shadow." My analysis culminates with an attempt to reassess the place of Burckhardt's ideas for modernity and to correspondingly reexamine Nietzsche. In particular, I highlight the disparity between Nietzsche's and Burckhardt's reception of the "problem of power," including the latter's reluctance - which was attended by ominous and highly prescient predictions of future large-scale wars and the steady "massification" of western society - to accept Nietzsche's acclamation of a final "will to power." Burckhardt teaches us the value of history as an active counterforce to dominant modern reality-formations and in doing so, his work rehabilitates the relevance of history for a world which, as Burckhardt once noted, suffers today from a superfluity of present-mindedness.

Profondeur et complexité de la pensée poétique d’Hermann Hesse ont souvent échappé à une réception critique induite en erreur par la limpidité d’une écriture qui, aux antipodes de « la consternation » requise dans l’après-guerre, obéit à une poétique de l’allégresse, de la Heiterkeit. Identification et analyse de cette poétique exigent d’adopter la perspective active de Hesse, celle de lecteur-créateur, afin de mieux le suivre dans sa libération progressive de divers cadres de pensée philosophico-poétiques. Hesse se démarque d’abord, lors d’une première crise, des canons weimariens de la Heiterkeit puis, dans une seconde crise, de l’esthétique créatrice nietzschéenne de l’allégresse. Confronté à l’urgence de la situation historique, Hesse trouve alors à la fin des années vingt sa propre poétique de résistance aux idéologies totalitaires, notamment au national-socialisme : une poétique de l’allégresse originale qui, utopique et initiatique, n’évacue pas le non-rationnel de l’esprit, comme Thomas Mann à la même époque. L’auteur parvient, en incluant le non-rationnel dans le fondement historique et anthropologique qu’il retire de sa lecture de Jacob Burckhardt, à éviter les écueils d’une autre poétique se dédiant au même moment au combat historique et transhistorique contre le fascisme – la poétique benjamienne de l’aura et de « l’image dialectique ». La poétique hesséenne de l’allégresse sera initiation par traces de témoignages à une lecture-écriture allégoricienne faisant participer l’individu à une communication authentique, créatrice de vrai et de joie dans le partage culturel d’une parole poétique originaire où, avec l’autre, l’homme advient historiquement à lui-même. / Depth and complexity of Hermann Hesse’s poetical thinking have been foregone by many of his critics misled by the limpidity of a prosa which, displaying his concept of serene joy (Heiterkeit), dissented from « the consternation» litterature that prevailed after the war. To identify and to analyse this poetics we need to adopt Hesse’s active perspective of reader-creator while following his progressive liberation from different kinds of philosophical and poetical frames: in a first crisis, he struggles himself free of the Heiterkeit canons of the Weimar Classics whereas the second crisis enables him to break the spell of Nietzsche’s creative poetics of joy. Urged by the historical context of the late twenties, Hesse creates his own poetics of resistance against totalitarian ideologies, in particular against National Socialism: an utopian and initiatory poetics of joy, that does not dismiss the non-rational of the mind like does Thomas Mann. Hesse’s poetics is based on the historical and anthropological foundations originating from his reading of Jacob Burckhardt’s works. It therefore prevents itself from the pitfalls of another poetics dedicated to the historical and transhistorical fighting against fascism, i.e. Walter Benjamin’s poetics of the aura and the “dialectical image”. Hesse’s poetics of joy is an initiation, through traces of testimony, towards an allegorical reading-writing which allows the individual to take part in an authentic communication that creates both truth and joy by the cultural sharing of an original poetical language through which the human being is coming, together with the other, historically to himself.

La pensée de Nietzsche a joué un rôle déterminant et récurrent dans les discours et les débats qui ont formé et continuent de façonner le domaine de l’histoire de l’art, mais aucune analyse systématique de cette question n’a encore vu le jour. L’influence de Nietzsche a été médiée par divers interlocuteurs, historiens de l’art et philosophes, qui ont encadré ces discussions, en utilisant les écrits du philosophe comme toile de fond de leurs propres idées. Ce mémoire souhaite démontrer que l’impact de Nietzsche dans le champ de l’histoire de l’art existe mais qu’il fut toujours immergé ou éclipsé, particulièrement dans le contexte anglo-américain, l’emphase étant placée sur les médiateurs de ses idées en n’avouant que très peu d’engagement direct avec son œuvre. En conséquence, son importance généalogique pour certains fondateurs de la discipline reste méconnue; sa présence réellement féconde se traduit plutôt comme une absence ou une présence masquée. En vue de démontrer ce propos, nous regardons donc le contexte nietzschéen qui travaille les écrits de certains historiens de l’art, comme Jacob Burckhardt et Aby Warburg, ou des philosophes et d’écrivains ayant marqué la discipline de l’histoire de l’art (plus particulièrement dans le cadre de l’influence de la « French Theory » sur l’histoire de l’art anglo-américaine depuis la fin des années 1970) : Martin Heidegger, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze et Georges Bataille. Nous examinons certaines voies par lesquelles ses idées ont acquis une pertinence pour l’histoire de l’art avant de proposer les raisons potentielles de leur occlusion ultérieure. Nous étudions donc l’évolution des discours multiples de l’histoire comme domaine d’étude afin de situer la contribution du philosophe et de cerner où et comment ses réflexions ont croisé celles des historiens de l’art qui ont soit élargi ou redéfini les méthodes et les structures d’analyse de leur discipline. Ensuite nous regardons « l’art » de Nietzsche en le comparant avec « l’art de l’histoire de l’art » (Preziosi 2009) afin d’évaluer si ces deux expressions peuvent se rejoindre ou s’il y a fondamentalement une incompatibilité entre les deux, laquelle pourrait justifier ou éclairer la distance entre la pensée nietzschéenne sur l’art et la discipline de l’histoire de l’art telle qu’elle s’institutionnalise au moment où le philosophe rédige son œuvre. / Nietzsche’s philosophy has played an active role in many recurring art historical debates that have permeated the discipline since its inception, yet there exists no systematic analysis of his impact. His influence has been mediated through various interlocutors, art historical and other, that have framed these discussions, while using his writings as an intellectual backdrop to their own ideas. This thesis attempts to show that Nietzsche’s engagement with art history has been submerged or overshadowed by an emphasis on the mediators of his thought with little direct engagement with his work, particularly so in the Anglo-American context. The consequence of this is that his genealogical importance for many of the founders of the discipline is left unacknowledged; hence, his actually potent presence is translated as an absence or oversight. In order to demonstrate this, we explore the Nietzschean heritage that informed the works of art historians like Jacob Burckhardt and Aby Warburg, and that of philosophers and writers who have marked the art historical discipline (particularly so with the surge of “French Theory” in Anglo-American art history as of the late 1970s): Martin Heidegger, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze and Georges Bataille. Once we have identified some of the trajectories on which his ideas have gained relevancy for art history, we look at the potential reasons for their subsequent occlusion. In order to do this, we begin by examining the evolving methodologies in historiography so as to situate his contribution to this domain of study and see where these reflections have intersected with those of art historians who either broadened or reshaped the methods and analytical structures of their own discipline. We finally compare Nietzsche’s 'art' to the “art of art history” (Preziosi 2009) and determine whether these two expressions can be bridged or whether there is a fundamental incompatibility that may explain the discrepancy between his treatment of art and that which concerned art history at the moment of its contemporaneous institutionalisation.