They saw history as a process, and a process, moreover, of improvement, of progress. Thereby they gave to its study a new value, not merely moral and political, but intel-lectual and social.
The men of the past entered their story
only indirectly, as the agents or vic-
tims of 'progress': they seldom appear-
ed directly, in their own right, in
their own social context, as the legit-
imate owners of their own autonomous
centuries.
The romantic writers changed all that.
Seing the doctrine of progress convert-
ed from a gospel of humanity into a
slogan of conquest, they .. tried to
look on the past direct .. they resol-
ved, at all costs, to make the past
live.
Hugh Trevor-Roper
Lord Dacre of Glanton
Regius Professor of Modern History
History and the Enlightenment
The Romantic Movement and
the Study of History
op. post.
John Robertson, editor
Yale University Press, 2010©
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