Antiquarian - Pejorative Associations

Pejorative Associations

Antiquaries often appeared to possess an unwholesome interest in death, decay, and the unfashionable; while their focus on obscure and arcane details meant that they seemed to lack an awareness both of the realities and practicalities of modern life, and of the wider currents of history. For all these reasons they frequently became objects of ridicule. The antiquary was satirised in John Earle's Micro-cosmographie of 1628 ("Hee is one that hath that unnaturall disease to bee enamour'd of old age, and wrinkles, and loves all things (as Dutchmen doe Cheese) the better for being mouldy and worme-eaten"), in Jean-Siméon Chardin's painting "Le Singe Antiquaire" (c.1726), in Sir Walter Scott's novel The Antiquary (1816), in the caricatures of Thomas Rowlandson, and in many other places. In his "Epigrams," John Donne wrote The Antiquary: "If in his study he hath so much care To hang all old strange things Let his wife beware." The word's resonances were close to those of modern terms for individuals with obsessive interests in technical minutiae, such as nerd, trainspotter or anorak.

In his essay "On the Uses and Abuses of History for Life" from his Untimely Meditations, philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche examines three forms of history. One of these is antiquarian history, an objectivising historicism which forges little or no creative connection between past and present. Nietzsche's philosophy of history had a significant impact on critical history in the 20th century.

C.R. Cheney, writing in 1956, observed that "t the present day we have reached such a pass that the word 'antiquary' is not always held in high esteem, while 'antiquarianism' is almost a term of abuse". Professional historians still often use the term "antiquarian" in a pejorative sense, to refer to historical studies which seem concerned only to place on record trivial or inconsequential facts, and which fail to consider the wider implications of these, or to formulate any kind of argument. The term is also sometimes applied to the activities of amateur historians such as historical reenactors, who may have a meticulous approach to reconstructing the costumes or material culture of past eras, but who are perceived to lack much understanding of the cultural values and historical contexts of the periods in question.