Vida e morte na escrita da história: entre gregos e modernos

Abstract

This essay takes its inspiration from M. de Certeau’s characterization of the historiographical operation as an “enigmatic relationship” established by the historian with “the present time society and death” through “the mediation of technical activities”. Turning visible, now, that which is no longer, the past time, historiography becomes a paradoxal inscription of the absence at the hic et nunc of the historical text. It also draws from J.-P. Vernant’s idea that funeral memorial and epic chant, in ancient Greece, were complementary ”“ they both operated as forms of death acculturation. In the strange and familiar relationship between the ancient Helens and us, we can find epistemological
and anthropological questions which enclose, in some contemporary historiographical issues, the past time’s status, the idea of the representation of historical text, the hard conquest of a conscience of historicity and the tense
relationships between myth, memory, and history at the heart of Western cultural tradition.