Friday 6 April 2012

A Glorious Consummation

How much does the use of metaphor tell us about the psychological state of a writer? Metaphorical reasoning is very important to the way history (or any text) is constructed, and both hidden/dead and explicit metaphors need to be analysed as an integral part of the whole. But sometimes historians just seem to go a bit crazy.

I wonder what was on David Hendrickson's mind when he was writing Peace Pact?
Because the confederation had not yet been made, July 4, 1776, may perhaps best be regarded not as their day of betrothal [between the American states] but as their night of passion, a glorious consummation to the warm embraces of the previous two years yet an act that fell well short of a regular marriage. [p.126] 
And he goes on!
The final line of the Declaration was a pledge that they would see each other throughg the making of the union and the winning of independence, but it was not yet an achievement of either. In a technical sense, therefore, they were living in sin. If the fond hope of British strategists was to catch these Americans in flagrante delicto - that is, without the union - American whigs were just as determined to proceed rapidly to the formalization of their vows. [p.126]
Then a hundred pages later:
The Constitution, as it emerged from the shuttered conclave at Philadelphia - was the offspring of a mating that occurred there with a group that may be thought of (without prejudice to the eighteenth century, or to the twenty-first) as the mothers of the new child. These ladies frowned upon the advances of the nationalists, believed their claims to be quite excessive if not outrageous, and were as determined as their prospective partners to exact terms that would accord with their dignity and status. The elaborate courtship went on a whole hot summer, its consummation in doubt until the very end. Not surprisingly, the offspring they produced resembled both father and mother but was very different from what either parent had anticipated or hoped for. [p.219]
So the question is - can a historian win the bad sex award?

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