Nécessité des ruines: les enjeux du classique

Abstract

This essay considers the special status of ruins (and especially Rome), not simply as objects that defy time and bear tangible witness to the past, but because of their function as symptoms and guardians of historical consciousness. Fragmentary and no longer capable of performing the function for which they were originally built, buildings in ruins mark the lost and the invisible, but in doing so, mark permanence and duration. The author questions the universality of ruins and asks whether (as Chateaubriand, for example, suggests) it is true that ‘all men have a secret attraction to ruins’. The author considers Rome's place in the European tradition of ‘the end of the world’ in comparison to traditions in India, China, and Japan, and identifies important ancient differences. In China, for example, the past and the passage of time are represented by other means. Ruins do not occupy a place in cultural memory comparable to that within the European tradition. The meaning of ruins, the author suggests, ‘is peculiar to Western culture’. It is part of one distinct set of strategies for marking historical breaks, but also ensuring a sense of continuity, both of which underlie the necessity of ruins.