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10.6094/helden.heroes.heros.

/2014/QM/02

Ronald G. Asch 5

The Hero in the Early Modern Period and


Beyond: An Elusive Cultural Construct and an
Indispensable Focus of Social Identity?

I Heinrich sees the hero as a semi-divine figure


that can bear and sustain conflicts which would
This introductory essay outlines some of the tear apart a normal human being. The hero is
objectives of our collaborative research centre not constituted by rational thought or theological
and the intellectual problems we are trying to ad- discourse,4 but through the story of his (or her)
dress.1 In doing so, my point of view is that of a life and death. It is a web of various and some-
historian, not a sociologist or a literary scholar, times contradictory narratives attached to the
and my perspective is very much that of an early myth or story of the fictional or historical hero
modernist. So my remarks, which are somewhat that gives meaning to this figure. The hero is in
impressionistic, will elucidate certain aspects of this sense a mediator, a figure that mediates, as
our project while others may receive less atten- in the case of Hercules, between untamed na-
tion. However, as this journal has been designed ture and civilisation, but also between conflicting
to present work in progress as well as final re- values or between gods and men. He gives an
sults, this may be a legitimate course to follow. example of how to live with conflicts which, at
a rational level, cannot be resolved (Heinrich 8,
What we focus on in our research centre is not 208211, 218, 285256, 307).5
the individual figure of the hero or the heroine.
Entire libraries have been written about Hercules There may be cultures and periods of history that
and Alexander or Joan of Arc and similar prom- can do without the hero, like the mostly reso-
inent figures. We are more interested in how lutely post-heroic societies of post-war Western
societies or social groups within societies define Europe. In a country like Germany, the very idea
and negotiate their norms, values and even their that it might be possible to sacrifice ones life for
identities with reference to such figures. As Stef- an idea is in itself seen by most people as verg-
fen Martus put it during a panel discussion we ing on fanaticism these days (Mnkler 742752;
held when we started our project, heroes are fig- see also Klonovsky). Germany offers an extreme
ures that are important for society because they example of a tendency visible in other European
enable us to deal vicariously with norms which countries today as well, but in a broader histor-
we accept somehow as valid but which we can ical perspective such societies are probably the
never aspire to live up to in real life. Heroes in exception rather than the rule. Nevertheless,
this somewhat oblique and potentially controver- one may perhaps say that the hero becomes a
sial sense often serve as symbols for what gives distant and even obsolete figure when imperson-
coherence to a social group.2 Like other symbols, al social institutions are sufficiently strong and
however, they remain ambiguous in their mean- powerful to give stability to society, to integrate
ing: the meaning of a life and a deed whether conflicting interests and to defuse tensions,
fictional or historical is at first glance of second- and when these societies do not actively have
ary importance cannot be spelt out in so many to defend themselves against serious external
words. The hero belongs to the imaginaire of a threats. However, when the rules a community
society and not to the world of arguments and lives by are less clear or do not find their expres-
systematic thought; that is both his strength and sion in stable political and legal institutions, the
a weakness.3 The German philosopher of reli- hero can again become an important focus for
gion Klaus Heinrich already pointed this out in the aspirations and loyalties of an entire society
the 1970s in his great series of lectures on Her- or at least distinct groups within such a society.6
cules and his labours as a mythological subject.

helden. heroes. hros.


Ronald G. Asch Early Modern Heroes

6
II of transgression; it transcends everyday moral
rules. If heroes are difficult to envisage without
One question which confronts our project is, of this potential for transgression, this is also due
course, how to define the hero. The problem to the fact that great passions are the material
here is that each culture has its own notions in heroes are made of; that, at least, was the re-
regard to what constitutes a heroic life or deed. ceived wisdom among early-modern writers and
What is clear is that in the past most Western poets, but it is a position which is prevalent in
societies have found it difficult to do entirely with- other ages as well. Even those who tried to de-
out heroic figures to define particular virtues or sign the model of a specifically Christian hero,
aspirations, in particular in moments of crisis. such as the seventeenth-century French Jesuit
Despite the great diversity of such figures, in Pierre Le Moyne, pointed out that without strong
the Western tradition the examples taken from passions, and, notably, an excess of love and
ancient mythology and history but also from the rage, the heroes which a writer depicts and cele-
Bible have exerted for a very long time such a brates would remain des heros insensibles, des
strong influence that we can, for the purpose braves stoiques and in one word, des souches
of creating a working definition, assume that all revetus de fer wooden stumps covered with
heroes at least within the European cultural iron. To Le Moyne, virtue should control the pas-
tradition have some sort of family resem- sions, but these passions should still remain vis-
blance. This is an expression which Wittgen- ible (sign. O vi verso, see also O ii verso). Such
stein employed in order to explain that certain notions of heroic virtue ultimately went back to
objects could all be considered as members of a Aristotle. They could be employed as important
class of entities despite the fact that one cannot elements in a discourse of heroism which freed
find a single feature which all objects invariably both the heroic monarch and the aristocrat from
have in common (Wittgenstein 5658; see also the restraints which the prevailing moral code
Bangu 5373). Thus, one can identify a number forced other human beings to respect. They thus
of elements which constitute the hero or heroine, established a hierarchy between the mediocre
but they need not be manifest all at the same virtues fit for ordinary people and the heroic,
time and in each of a variety of different cultures; magnanimous ones fit only for the exalted few
the emphasis on any one of these elements can (Scodel 168169).
vary considerably.
It remained somewhat unclear, however, whether
If one looks at older, historical attempts to define mere stoic fortitude in resisting the vicissitudes
the hero and his place in ethics, one is admitted- of fate or in suffering physical or mental torments
ly already confronted by a certain ambiguity in or, even more questionably, the contemplative
most definitions. Thus, a run-of-the-mill seven- virtue of the sage were enough to constitute a
teenth-century German dissertation comes to claim to heroism, or whether some visible spec-
the conclusion: Heros est persona divinitus ex- tacular action was required to give substance to
citata, et donis singularibus commune hominum such a claim.7 Thus, even in the early-modern
sortem excedentibus donata, actiones edens period, an age where one would expect to find
mirabiles, caeterisque hominibus inimitabiles, a much more homogeneous system of values
cumque successu longe felicissimo conjunc- than in contemporary pluralistic societies, there
tas The hero is a person called forth by God were conflicting models of the hero and of hero-
and one who possesses extraordinary gifts ex- ism as a pattern of behaviour competing against
ceeding the common condition of men. He ac- each other. Nevertheless, as long as we find
complishes miraculous deeds that other mortals some sort of continuity between the admittedly
cannot imitate, deeds which produce the most multi-layered ideas which antiquity had asso-
triumphant success (Matthiae and Pfankuch ciated with the character of the hero and later
210, my translation). According to the author of models and concepts (that is, in Western soci-
this thesis, no hero is conceivable without some eties, probably at least until the late nineteenth
kind of divine inspiration. The afflatus divinus and early twentieth centuries), certain topoi and
is indispensable for real heroic virtue. At the commonplaces emerge in the various discours-
same time, heroes are not to be judged by the es delineating the semantic field of the heroic
same rules as other human beings; their actions and of human heroism which we can take as the
often infringe on rules which other mortals need foundation for a working definition of the heroic
to respect and obey (Matthiae/Pfankuch 210 always bearing in mind the frequently changing
221; see also Schottelius 585595, Disselkamp semantics of the idea of the hero and the ever
2447 and, for the Catholic tradition, Hof- present internal tensions of the concept:8
mann). Thus, heroic greatness has an element

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Ronald G. Asch Early Modern Heroes

7
The hero or heroine is seen as a super- III
human figure; he or she performs works
or deeds which no normal mortal can Heroes are in one sense or another constituted
ordinarily perform. However, superiority and constructed by the societies or social groups
over others, strength of character, physi- that look up to them for inspiration or at least ac-
cal perfection, fortitude and magnanimity knowledge them as exceptional figures. For the
as such are never sufficient. There must modern scholar it would hardly make sense to
be some sort of conflict or battle, be it in ask whether a person or historical figure really
the literal sense or in a more metaphorical is or was a hero outside the cultural or political
sense as in the psychological or spiritual context, the social configuration (von den Hoff
conflict between reason or faith on the et al., 9) that allows him or her to be extolled
one hand and the passions and human and accepted as such. One mans hero is often
frailties on the other, in which these vir- another mans villain or terrorist, and even pop-
tues and perfections can be demonstrated ular heroic figures are easily forgotten once the
in action.9 In fact, in one way or another cause they have fought for has lost its supporters.
the most common type of hero is a man However, as far as historical figures, for example
of action or more rarely before the twen- war heroes or political leaders, are concerned,
tieth century a woman of action, even it of course remains a question of considerable
when intellectual or moral achievements interest why certain constructions are success-
can be constructed as actions as well, as ful and persuasive at the time and others not.
for example the intellectual integrity and As a historian one is interested in the resources
the strength of character required in a which the construction of historical figures (fic-
battle for knowledge and wisdom against tional characters may be a different matter) as
the powers of darkness and superstition heroes or heroines has to rely on, and not just
(Steadman 60108, in particular 6474).10 in the rhetoric, the language and discursive pat-
terns of such constructions, important as these
The hero may be a lonely outsider, perhaps in aspects may be. Such resources cannot be pro-
revolt against society even, but no hero is im- duced out of nothing; they have to be available
aginable without some sort of following, without in some way, have to be provided by a combina-
a community which venerates or acknowledges tion of events or the successful self-fashioning
him or her at least posthumously. The story of of an individual, even perhaps his or her distinct
his or her life needs to be told and retold; other- charisma. One should not forget that at least
wise there are no heroes, and who should tell in aristocratic societies those powerful enough
the story if not some kind of community? If this have through the ages tried to create and project
is true, however, the media which are being em- an image of themselves if not as heroes then as
ployed to tell the story are equally important, least as men or, more rarely, women who
and they have their own logic. A picture which were capable of imitating the deeds of heroes.
shows Alexander in battle against the Persians This image, which was to give them a special
produces a different kind of hero than an opera claim to honour (and the idea of honour is cen-
or a poem or, a further alternative, a story told by tral to most kinds of heroic self-fashioning) and
a historian.11 Finally, although heroic figures may status, was part of a wider quest for a cultural
embody the values of a society, they also, as hegemony that these elites pursued. This holds
has already been pointed out, tend to transgress true for the aristocracy of Greek city states as
moral boundaries. A hero who just possesses much as for the nobilities of early-modern Eu-
the same virtues as other human beings, only rope.
to a greater degree, would not only be somehow
too normal to be recognised as an exceptional However, constructions and self-representa-
figure. He would also not be exciting enough tions can be plausible or they can be implausi-
and would fail to fascinate a potential audience. ble. There are more than enough examples of
There must at least be some temptation or inner strategies of glorification or self-glorification that
struggle to transform the would-be hero into a failed to convince those who were supposed to
personality that captures our imagination; this is be their audience. Moreover, in following the ten-
another element which adds to the ambiguity of dency to see all historical phenomena as mere
the hero as a figure.12 constructions, as something which is created
and engendered by mere discourse and can-
not be analysed or even be conceived beyond
this discourse, a certain caution may be helpful.
Such an approach, if taken to its extremes, can

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Ronald G. Asch Early Modern Heroes

8
be rooted in an urge to debunk all kinds of history al past already if you want to construct one, it
which in the past managed to give substance to may be helpful if you have a figure at hand which
political or cultural identities, and such an urge already possesses some sort of charisma and
is the manifestation of an ideology just like any some particular aura based on great victories or
other ideology. Or, as the great intellectual his- achievements if you want to create a hero.
torian John Pocock once put it: There are forces
in our world that do not wish us to say we or act This is not to deny the fact that achievements
on that basis since to do so might impede their which in one culture are perfectly serviceable as
selling us a new identity tomorrow and since material for a heroic narrative may be seen as far
saying we and saying I are intimately linked, too flimsy in another culture and under changed
they discourage the Self from believing it can circumstances. Nevertheless, to give just one
manage its own history, just as they discourage example, Elizabeth I of England was promoted
the society from believing it can manage its own in the later sixteenth century as a heroic figure
history (Pocock, Conclusion 310).13 despite the fact that her generals and admi-
rals lost so many battles both in Ireland and in
Such an approach might be seen as inherent- their fight against Spain abroad or committed
ly hostile to the idea that a heroic vision of life unforgivable blunders which led to an enormous
could ever have had any deeper legitimacy or waste of lives and military resources. People
foundation outside the realm of discourse, under bought into this hero worship because it was, in
any circumstances whatsoever. The rejection of different ways, in their interest to do so (Mon-
such a vision of life is perhaps reinforced today trose 113).16 Elizabeths ability to gain the loyal
by the tendency to give priority to the victims and support of both moderate and, for a time, rad-
their fate and not to the agency of figures who ical Protestants and even some church Papists
could plausibly be seen as heroes fighting for a as well as her later victory against the Spanish
common cause; and of course somebody who Armada in 1588, however, were indispensable
would argue today that the fate and predicament preconditions for the renown she enjoyed in her
of the victims of history is equally a mere cultural own time and in later ages as a heroic monarch.
construct would immediately tread on very dan- And this victory was real enough although it was
gerous ground indeed, in particular and rightly perhaps brought about more by bad weather
so if such an approach were applied to phe- than by courage and military superiority and al-
nomena such as the early-modern Atlantic slave though it did by no means end the threat of a
trade or ethnic cleansing and extermination in Spanish invasion as people have sometimes as-
the twentieth century.14 However, perhaps for the sumed. Had the English been defeated in 1588,
very reason that, in the past, heroic narratives Elizabeth could at best have become a heroic
or images of one kind or another played such a victim and martyr like Mary Queen of Scots but
crucial role in constituting the we one wants to not a David-like figure as she did become in the
dissolve, they are today rejected or at least seen end for so many of her subjects and for militant
as part of an exotic, alien past, a mental world of Protestants in later ages.17
signs which no longer have any real meaning for
us. Moreover, the figure of the hero is possibly
the strongest expression of the sovereign Self,
the autonomous individual. And this idea of the IV
sovereign Self as such may be seen by many
contemporaries as a dangerous obstacle to the I have already mentioned the fact that there are
construction of new, post-modern, sufficiently cycles of hero worship and of the rejection of
malleable identities.15 the heroic, a sort of continuous boom and bust
of heroic values and patterns of behaviour. The
The historian is undoubtedly in deep water when military hero in particular easily becomes a fig-
he is confronted by the implications his research ure of controversy in times which see their ideal
may have for present-day societies, and even not in conquest and military glory but in peace
more so when he takes sides in debates which and prosperity. Thus, the eighteenth century is
may have a political impact. Nevertheless, if one a period when in many countries the great men
is inclined to resist the idea that there is no reali- (benefactors more than warriors) and, much
ty outside discourse for the very reason that this more rarely and controversially, some great
idea is itself the expression of a distinct ideology women replace the hero in the pantheon of virtue
(and the present author is inclined to do so), one (Bonnet; see also Bell 107139). But criticism of
will be likely to say that, in the same way in which the hero and his rejection as a moral paradigm
it may be helpful to have some kind of a nation- cannot be reduced to a mere aversion to warfare

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Ronald G. Asch Early Modern Heroes

9
if only for the reason that even for aristocratic One should not forget that the heroic figure al-
cultures the military hero is only one example of ways had considerable subversive potential. In
the heroic in the broader sense. What is at stake comparison to a heroic leader, a hereditary mon-
in debates about the role of the hero is often the arch who had to rely on the charisma of his office
place of the exceptional, the life which cannot be could all too easily be seen as lacking in heroic
subjected to the normal rules of society, in the virtue; more generally, it remained dangerous to
moral universe as such. Is there a place in soci- praise the monarch him- or herself too much as a
ety for human beings who through their actions, hero. To celebrate the monarch as military hero
their way of life or even their mere suffering fun- would be to invite the possibility of celebrating
damentally transcend the norms which are valid a military hero as monarch, as James Garrison
for everybody else and who embody some ex- put it many years ago in his book on Dryden, the
traordinary zeal which is unattainable, perhaps English Restoration poet (115).
unimaginable to most people? The idea of the
hero is not easily compatible, for example, with In England, figures such as the 2nd Earl of Es-
an anthropological approach which sees human sex, who was executed in 1601, and much more
actions as motivated exclusively by fear and starkly Oliver Cromwell in the 1640s and 50s,
self-interest. Thus, in the seventeenth century had demonstrated sufficiently the tensions which
both materialists such as Hobbes and radical could emerge between a charismatic leader in
Christian moralists such as the Jansenists found the fight against the countrys enemies and
it difficult to see men and women as being cap- popery on the one hand and a monarch who
able of truly heroic feelings and actions, though could rely on a sacral aura bestowed on him
the Jansenists may have made a reluctant by tradition and hereditary right but who lacked
exception for those inspired and guided imme- any credible heroic achievements on the other
diately by Gods grace (Zarka 4144; Strauss (Gajda; Hammer; Knoppers). Historians have
6575; Bnichou 97111; Chaline, Port Royale often argued that early-modern monarchy owed
163175 and De la gloire 95108). its real success to its ability to emasculate aris-
tocratic heroism and have interpreted the poems
Furthermore, institutions such as forms of gov- and plays of the seventeenth century in particu-
ernment or religious communities like to ap- lar as a reflection on this death of the aristocrat-
peal to heroes as founding figures in the past, ic hero, at least in France, where the names of
but consider them and their personal charisma Corneille and Racine spring to mind (Cornette,
as dangerous in the present and therefore re- 942; Bannister, Cond in Context; Stegmann).
ject them. To give just one example: In France In the seemingly absolute monarchies of the
after the end of the Wars of Religion there was a seventeenth and eighteenth centuries there ap-
marked reaction against any sort of heroic fight pears to have been no place any longer for the
for religious objectives which could be seen as heroic warrior of noble descent who pursued
overzealous because it had been exactly such a the quest of honour and glory on the battlefield.
zeal which had destabilised both the country and In fact, it seems that with the advent of modern
the monarchy before 1598. This led to a redefini- standing armies, made up as they were of sol-
tion of the place both martyrs and mystics held in diers systematically recruited among the rural
society, as Antoinette Gimaret has demonstrated and urban poor and commanded by officers to
recently in her book Extraordinaire et ordinaire whom war had become a profession and was
des croix. Saintliness was now to be demon- no longer primarily a rite de passage on the way
strated by performing works of charity and by to honour, the time for the flamboyant display
displaying all those virtues which even ordinary of heroic courage was over; both chivalry and
Christians were deemed to possess, only to a a particular mode of heroic warlike masculinity
greater degree. In fact, saintliness now seemed were now in terminal decline, or so we are told.18
more accessible for women than for men. The
more masculine militant piety the warriors of the However, as Herv Drvillon has pointed out,
Catholic League had displayed was replaced while noble military heroism was indeed trans-
by the internalised heroism of ascetic piety and formed over the course of the seventeenth cen-
charity of the nuns of Port Royal, one might say. tury, it became by no means obsolete. In one
The heroic self-sacrifice of the martyrs suffering of his more recent books, Drvillon has drawn
physical torments was no longer seen as appro- our attention to the figure of dArtagnan, one of
priate and was in fact suspected to be inherently the heroes of Alexandre Dumass cloak-and-
subversive of the traditional established order dagger narratives but also a real historical fig-
(Gimaret 928, 120128, 799803). ure: Charles dArtagnan de Batz-Castelmore, a
nobleman from Gascony. The real dArtagnan

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Ronald G. Asch Early Modern Heroes

10
died during the siege of Maastricht in 1673; the perfect embodiment of middle-class values)
nothing could, it seems, be less heroic than vanquishing both the trade unions and South
siege warfare, where technical superiority and American dictators, at whose somewhat contro-
the prudent and cautious outmanoeuvring of the versial funeral all the most militant and patriotic
enemy counted for much more than the flamboy- church hymns of the nineteenth century were
ant display of individual courage. However, even being sung to evoke a model of Christian hero-
in the trench warfare of the seventeenth cen- ism in adversity.20 The latter example shows, by
tury there was room for the sudden assault and the way, that in a country like Britain the model
charge, only that la belle mort of the knight sans of the heroic political leader has not yet entirely
reproche was now no longer sufficient in itself; disappeared, although such figures tend to be
such a death had to serve a military and political deeply divisive, more perhaps than ever before.
purpose, and it had to fit into larger calculations.
But in the end, as Drvillon states: Cest pr- There is certainly some truth in an approach
cisment dans la confrontation avec la raison which emphasises the extent to which traditional
technique que le culte de la tmrit prend tout models of heroism, such as that of the chivalric
son sens It is in the confrontation with the warrior, lost their moral authority and coherence
rational logic of military technology that the cult from the seventeenth century onwards if not
of audacity and courage finds its place. DArt- much earlier, but one should not underestimate
agnans heroic death is, however, different from the extent to which older languages of heroism
that of late medieval or Renaissance knights and the heroic could be remodelled, recon-
and warriors, because it gains its significance structed and revived in later ages. With regard to
within a system of values dominated much more chivalry it has been stated that it was a language,
strongly by the desire to serve king and country not a political position, and there is abundant evi-
and to be seen fighting for such a cause and dence that it was a language that continued to
not just to excel within an autonomous commu- be spoken by any number of early modern men
nity of nobles: Le sacrifice de dArtagnan aban- and women well into the seventeenth century,
donnait ainsi le registre de la belle mort o le that it continued to be a persuasive and plausi-
fait darmes sinsrait dans un systme de valeur ble mode of self-presentation (Davis 239). Even
autorfrenc, o laction hroique se suffisait later, in the nineteenth century for example, chiv-
elle-mme DArtagnans sacrifice abandons alry could be revived as a code of heroic conduct
the language and register of the beautiful death to give substance to a new ideal of muscular
where the military action is part of a self-referen- Christianity or to the glorification of command-
tial system of values and where the heroic deed ers and imperial proconsuls bearing the white
is self-sufficient (Drvillon, Batailles 164 and mans burden in distant colonies (McKenzie
167, my translations). 109139), for the very reason that one of the
most remarkable things about chivalry seems to
I am quoting Drvillon in detail here because we be its capacity to sustain repeated indeed in-
in our project in Freiburg are easily confronted numerable deaths and rebirths (Davis 236).
with the argument that at least the classical hero,
and the chivalrous warrior in particular, who pro- Admittedly, from the eighteenth century onwards
vided an entire social group with its raison dtre the models for a heroic mode of life have be-
for centuries, was already a figure of the past come much more diverse and pluralistic. No one
in the late seventeenth century, if not earlier. All model such as that of the chivalric warrior re-
later images of the heroic were, one might argue, vived by a romantic evocation of the medieval
just expressions of an idle nostalgia rooted world was generally accepted in the nineteenth
in the wishful thinking of a strictly disciplined, century, and even less so in the twentieth and
increasingly middle-class society focussed on twenty-first centuries. There are now heroes or
the rational pursuit of utilitarian and often merely are they mere idols or stars? for almost every
economic ends a society, in other words, which occasion and every walk of life, both male and
left little room for flamboyant individual actions female, none of them uncontested. Moreover,
of any kind.19 This society therefore projected its at least in the post-heroic societies of Western
longing for the morally or aesthetically excep- Europe even those who acknowledge and ven-
tional onto figures who through their courage erate heroes often do not take them entirely at
and their sacrifices seemed to overcome the face value. Their cult, if such it can be called,
humdrum routines of modern life, be it the ex- is frequently rather part of the rubber cage of
plorer, the national freedom fighter, the artistic disenchantment (Gellner), a half-ironic re-en-
genius battling against a hostile society or even, chantment of a world disenchanted by science
more lately, the iron female politician (herself and rational thought, which many people tend

helden. heroes. hros.


Ronald G. Asch Early Modern Heroes

11
to indulge in these days. The constructionism of tain emotions can be mastered and controlled,
sociological analysis or of cultural studies, men- can in fact be transformed into moral sentiments
tioned earlier, is in some ways internalised by which form a framework for our actions. Express-
the very men and women who identify with mod- ing emotions is to some extent the acting out of
ern-day heroes. It is implicitly accepted that they a role in a play, and our culture provides us with
are only symbolic figures, mere social and cul- such roles complete with the pertinent emotives
tural constructs, and that the story of their lives which we can act out in moments of particular
is, if not devoid of any real cognitive content, emotional stress. Members of the French social
at least free of much significance for the real elite may not necessary have felt the same emo-
world of power and profit. They are worshipped tions that the heroes and heroines of Corneilles
all the same because their status as idols is and Racines tragedies displayed on stage,
seen as serving a social function or because of but their works provided them with a language
the emotional surplus value such worship has, they could use to explore and control their own
some kind of feel-good factor, in the same way in feelings, and the chivalrous novels or the bio-
which people consider religion these days often graphies of great soldiers such as the life of the
as a useful ingredient in a wellness treatment for Chevalier Bayard, which were still reprinted in
their psyche without taking the doctrines of such the seventeenth century, may have had a similar
a religion in any way for real.21 effect (Drvillon, Batailles 138140 and Rubel
83108; see also Bannister, Privileged Mortals).
Nevertheless, even in this diluted, half-ironic and
possibly self-conscious form, hero worship can The space is not sufficient here to pursue this
provide models not just for actions and behav- line any further, but I hope to have shown that
iour but also for the management of emotions, at least as an object for research the hero or
though perhaps not to the same extent as in heroine is by no means an obsolete figure,
the past. Let us assume with William Reddy even in a society so passionately post-hero-
that cultures and society all have their particular ic and anti-heroic as the modern German one
emotional regime, or perhaps more often than (for Britain the description as post-heroic would
not several competing emotional regimes. Such perhaps be much less convincing). This holds
regimes provide individuals with a language not even more true given the fact that such societies
just to express but to define and evoke emotional are these days confronted with the moral codes
responses to particular events and challenges. of other cultures which have never abandoned
Reddy uses the word emotives in this context. older, more aggressive models of masculinty
What he means is it that there are certain set and the ethos associated with the cult of mar-
formulae which we use not just to express but to tial heroes. It may well be the case that Islamic
explore our own emotions. Such formulae have ideas of Holy War and heroic, possibly suicidal
a certain performative potential in that they can death in the battle against the infidels are in their
evoke what they are describing and give shape present form much more deeply influenced by
to an otherwise very diffuse bundle of emo- nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Western
tional impulses (Reddy, Navigation of Feelings ideas and ideologies such as radical nihilism or
63111). However, according to Reddy, who is unbridled ethnic and cultural nationalism than
a cultural anthropologist, the world is more than we care to admit (Gray), but they nevertheless
mere discourse or text. There has to be some pose a fundamental challenge to societies that
raw material, some resources which can be in general leave very little space for the heroic
formed and shaped; otherwise the words which individual in the real world as opposed to that
we utter remain just that and we notice that we of the media. Such challenges certainly demon-
are not able to evoke the emotions in ourselves strate that heroes, even if they are mere cultural
which we perhaps try to demonstrate by using constructs from a certain scholarly perspective,
certain formulae or gestures (108110; see also remain very real and an important focus of col-
Reddys Against Constructionism, 327351). lective identity to some people. But that is an-
other subject, which may perhaps be addressed
Where do heroes and heroines come in here? at a future workshop.
They can clearly provide us with a model for
exploring and for defining our own feelings, but
also for bringing them under control. This applies
in particular to feelings such as fear and pain but Ronald G. Asch is Professor of Early Modern
also rage, pride and shame. The hero as a figure History at the University of Freiburg and a mem-
in works of art and literature but also as a figure ber of Collaborative Research Centre 948.
in historical narratives is meant to show that cer-

helden. heroes. hros.


Ronald G. Asch Early Modern Heroes

12 1 This introduction is a modified and extended version of 11 Kirchner (33394) discusses the impact which a crisis
the short lecture I gave at our symposium. The original form of traditional models of heroic greatness during the seven-
of an improvised outline of our research agenda instead of teenth century had on poetry and the visual arts, albeit in
a more systematic approach has been largely retained. quite different ways.
2 Martus, 80: Der Held reflektiert die Mglichkeiten des 12 For the debate on this tension in the seventeenth century
Menschlichen und operiert in diesem Sinn grenzwertig. [] see West (in particular 218) and also Owen, who comes to
Vielleicht dient dies der Verwaltung unlebbarer Normen und the following conclusion: However much moral and politi-
Werte, die gleichwohl lebensleitend sind. cal force the idea of absolute loyalty is felt to have, there is
something unconvincing about the spectacle of quiet her-
3 See also Lucien Brauns comments on the figure of the
oes. (200).
hero: Il nest plus question ici dimage en tant que ralit
reprsentative, mais du travail imaginaire lui-mme, trans- 13 For Pococks own position see his New British History:
formant le spectaculaire, lui confrant sa dimension sym- I am prepared to assert that there can be no sovereignty
bolique. Cest pourqoui il ny a pas proprement parler de without a history. I see identity, history, sovereignty and poli-
pense hroque mais plutt un imaginaire hroque, cest- tics as under attack, on a front probably global and certainly
a-dire un dynamisme hroco-politique, chappant toute European, and I oppose the project of multipolitical history
dtermination, agissant selon des voies simples, mais incon- to the project of absorbing states and their histories into a
scientes et jamais nommes (Braun 26). global culture of commodification enforced by its attendant
bureaucracies (300).
4 In Heinrichs opinion, there is an important difference
between the heroes of ancient mythology and the Christian 14 See Apostolids. His book, which identifies Christianity
Saviour. Here it is the word, the logos, the message of Gods in a somewhat narrow perspective with the cult of the victim,
revelation that is at the centre and which promises to resolve may be overstating its case, but all the same it is an impor-
all conflicts. In the story of the pagan hero, by contrast, these tant contribution to the debate on the role of the heroic in
conflicts remain alive but are held in suspense; they are present-day societies.
made bearable through retelling the story of the heros deeds
15 For the hero as a model for the autonomous self see
(Heinrich 319).
Gehlen. See also Frevert on the rise and fall of heroism in the
5 See in particular the following statement by Heinrich: nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Thiele discusses a spe-
Da Herakles widersprchliche Funktionen, Positionen und cific variety of the cult of the heroic individual in Nietzsches
Rollen zugemutet werden, und er dennoch diese eine Figur philosophy. Nietzsche is also considered by Frchtl in Sci-
bleibt, zeigt, da in ihm ein Konfliktzusammenhang, den er ence Pulp Fiction and Das Unverschmte Ich.
halten soll, vorgestellt wird []. Wenn die Beschftigung mit
16 Or, as Louis Montrose puts it: I construe the cultural
der Figur des Heros einen Sinn haben soll, dann den, da
phenomenon of Elizabethan royal pageantry and iconogra-
das in ihr konzentrierte, scheinbar zeitlich entfernte Konflikt-
phy primarily as an ideological apparatus operated by those
potential als noch immer virulent erkannt [] werden kann
who constituted the political nation (113).
(208209) Following Hegel, Heinrich notes further: Fr den
Begriffsdialektiker Hegel ich sage es kurz und knapp war 17 On Elizabeth as heroine see Hackett; Doran and Free-
die figrliche Dialektik die groe Methode der Vergegen- man; Levin; and Stump, Shenk and Levin, among many
wrtigung von Spannungen und Konflikten; und in der Tat other studies.
reprsentieren Figuren der Dialektik Spannungsverhltnisse 18 See Drvillon, LImpot du sang, 338339 and 324327
und Konfliktzustnde bis auf den heutigen Tag (209). on the changing models of military heroism to which the
6 Thus already Hegel, 24345; see also Giesen: Although French nobility subscribed; see also Brioist, Drvillon and
as we have stressed heroism itself is immortal, the places Serna 264273 as well as Wrede.
for heroes are fading away with the expansion of money, law 19 A good example for this is, of course, Thomas Carlyles
and science. If rationalization drives the modern world, the On Heroes; see also Calder.
sacred becomes, indeed, an impersonal order which is less
embodied in persons than in principles that have no special 20 St. Pauls Cathedral London, The Order of Service for
place anymore but are everywhere (42). the Funeral of Baroness Thatcher.
7 On this debate in seventeenth-century France see Fu- 21 On the post-modern predicament of separating the sym-
maroli 323348. For the model of the heroic soul as being bolic realm from the world of cognitive judgements (decog-
compatible with the vita contemplative see Steadman on nitivisation) while validating cultural constructs which are
Bacon and the Scientist as Hero (60108, esp. 6474). now recognised as such because of their social functiona-
For the non-martial hero, Odysseus, the great sufferer, could lity or psychological usefulness, see Gellner, in particular his
serve as a model. If one followed this model, artists such as remark on autofunctionalism: Autofunctionalism consists, as
Michelangelo or scientists such as Bacon or Galileo could the name implies, of a kind of turning in upon oneself of the
claim heroic greatness in the same way in which an aristo- functionalist insight. The functionalist looks at strange beliefs
cratic warrior could. and institutions and notices, that, notwithstanding their sur-
face oddity, or even absurdity, they are in their context highly
8 For what follows, see also the research agenda of SFB functional, or even ideal. He concludes that [] they should
948, as summarised in von den Hoff et al. be accorded a kind of functional validity, a validity in virtue of
9 Yuval Harari argued in his 2008 study that from the function (rather than in virtue of overt message, which would
mid-eighteenth century onwards, the torment both phys- not warrant it) (160).
ical and psychological a soldier suffered in war could be
constructed as part of a process whereby he discovered his
true self and how this process was now seen as an almost
indispensable part of true military heroism.
10 Lutheran authors in Germany often tried to show that the
leader of the Protestant Reformation was himself a quintes-
sential hero. Kaufmann points this out for publications of the
early reformation, but see also later texts such as Brgers
De Virtute Heroica Lutheri... (1683) and also Matthiae and
Pfankuch (212).

helden. heroes. hros.


Ronald G. Asch Early Modern Heroes

Fumaroli, Marc. LHrosme comlien et lthique de la 13


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