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Tocqueville certainly wants to be meticulous in his research and accurate in his facts. He makes pointed reference to all the archives he has visited and is manifestly concerned about establishing his narrative and analytic authority. But he is also preoccupied with the problem of proximity and distance in his relation to his subject matter. And he does at times question himself, change voices, and make explicit but modulated use of irony, parody, and other rhetorical devices. Tocqueville thus enacts one form of dialogic exchange with the past, a form in some instances so pronounced that it may disconcert more conventional historians who might otherwise find congenial his methodology, his balanced and often mellifluous style, and his basic conception of historical discourse. He also manifests a tension between a desire for objectivity and an involvement or implication in the events he treats. At certain times his voice is explicitly normative and performative, particularly with reference to his desire to give his defence of liberty implications for the present and future. (en) |
