Article 13: Paul Ricoeur, Memory, And The Historical Gaze: Implications for Education Histories

In the Wiblingen Monastery in Germany, a baroque sculpture known as History and Time (D. H. Herberger 1744) stands near the side entrance of the monastery’s library. Produced by the eighteenth-century sculptor, D.

H. Herberger, History and Timedepicts the classical Greek god Kronos, who hands a book to the figure of history (whom, I shall refer to as History). On the dedicatory page of Memory, History and Forgetting, French philosopher Paul Ricoeur included a photograph of the sculpture with following inscription:

In a special place in the library of the monastery there stands a superb baroque sculpture.

The sculpture’s depiction of Kronos bears resemblance to the classical Greek god of time and describes Kronos as “the winged god” and as “an old man with a wreathed brow.” Early Orphic accounts (fifth century B.C.) first described Time as a cosmological three-headed winged-snake Chronos, who descended as a primordial god from Chaos (Kirk and Raven 1963). Later Greek myths transposed Chronos with Kronos, instead depicting Kronos as a ravenous Titan god who devoured his children to avoid an impending prophesy of his eventual overthrow by one of his children (Zeus). This unfortunate and repeated loss of her children led Kronos’ wife Rhea to artfully deceive her cannibalistic husband, by secretly hiding her newborn son Zeus on the isle of Krete, and then by presenting a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes to Kronos, who instantly and obtusely devoured the baby. Eventually Zeus matured into godhood, forced Kronos his father to disgorge his devoured offspring, and dethroned his father with the assistance of his newfound siblings (Hamilton 1998). The Romans later incorporated the Greek Titan Kronos into their own parallel myths as Saturn, instead portraying him as an agricultural god, or an old man carrying a sickle (Cicero 1997; Peck 1898). Notably, the varying portrayals of Kronos in classical mythology demonstrate the unavoidable loss of time and the difficulty of preserving the past.