Nietzsche and Arendt in Casterbridge: on the burden of history

Abstract

The article raises the question whether postmodern attempts to re-write history does not, despite its best efforts, fall back into the homogeneity of metanarrative. By doing this, Nietzsche's critique of monumental and antiquarian history is addressed as well as Gadamer's dialogical model of history writing and the rise of the museum or archive as a modern phenomenon. In adddion, I ask whether metanarrative is avoidable at all and by referring to Walter Benjamin and Hannah Arendt's image of the pearl diver, make a plea for a critical engagement with the past.