The primitive, the aesthetic, and the savage : an Enlightenment problematic

302 Pages·2012·3.19 MB·English

by  Brown

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THE PRIMITIVE, THE AESTHETIC,
AND THE SAVAGE
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The Primitive, the Aesthetic,
and the Savage
• • • •
An Enlightenment Problematic
Tony C. Brown
University of Minnesota Press
Minneapolis
London
An earlier version of chapter 4 was previously published as “Joseph Addison and the
Pleasures of Sharawadgi,” ELH74 (Spring 2007): 171–93; reprinted courtesy of
The Johns Hopkins University Press. An earlier version of chapter 7 was previously
published as “The Barrows of History,” Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture37 (2008):
39–63; reprinted courtesy of The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Copyright 2012 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of
the publisher.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290
Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520
http://www.upress.umn.edu
ISBN978-0-8166-8268-3
The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer.
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For
Violet
and
Roy Callaghan
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Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xix
Note on Texts and Translations xxi
Introduction: An Enlightenment Problematic 1
I. Primitive, Aesthetic, Savage
1. The Primitive 25
2. The Aesthetic 45
3. The Savage 63
II. Delimiting the Aesthetic
4. Joseph Addison’s China 75
5. Kant’s Tattooed New Zealanders 105
III. Aesthetic Formations of History
6. Adding History to a Footprint in Robinson Crusoe 147
7. Indian Mounds in the End-of-the-Line Mode 181
Conclusion: . . . As IfEurope Existed 217
Notes 227
Index 263
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Preface
The reader will quickly recognize this book’s apparent dual nature. On the
one hand, it pursues a subject matter we might call historical (roughly,
eighteenth-century aesthetics), and on the other, it takes an approach we
might call theoretical, or any number of lose synonyms (philosophical,
abstract, conceptual, deconstructive). This all as sumes a great deal, of
course: that we know what we mean by historicaland theoretical;that we
are assured of their categorical separation (historical on the one hand, the-
oretical on the other); that we can pursue an historical subject matter and
take a theoretical approach, as if both were not only separate to each other
but external to ourselves (something to seek out or to adopt). Yet despite
the misgivings these assumptions should no doubt prompt, history and
theory are commonly sequestered, one from the other, in various, even
essential, ways—so much so, in fact, that the fanciful reader may already
be imagining me in the guise of Herman Mel ville’s Tommo, who, having
jumped ship in the Marquesas Islands with his companion, Toby, finds
himself uneasily running the ridge between two valleys. He does not know
on what side to descend because neither he nor Toby can tell which valley
is home to the friendly Happar and which to the treacherous cannibals,
the Typee. For Tommo as for us, it appears to be one or the other: Typee
or Happar, theory or history.1
Now we know from the title of Melville’s novel, Typee: A Peep at Poly-
nesian Life(1846), that Tommo and Toby did make a decision and did go
down one side of the ridge rather than the other. For my most historically
inclined readers, this would be where the analogy proves most telling.
Rather than remaining on the ridge, they would say, I made my decision
early and descended—but on the wrong side. For in truth, while I am far
from inattentive to the valley of history and the scholarship it yields, I do
not treat history in the manner to which we are accustomed in the human-
ities. Historical context has become our most solid and unshakable habit-
ual unity, that one level where everything may be, even ought to be, finally
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