The week before Princess Diana's funeral and the funeral itself were, by agreement, a remarkable moment in the history of modern Britain, but most of us, despite broadsheet press commentary which was frequently sensible and thoughtful, have found it difficult to understand or even to know what happened. And this, of course, is due to the fact that the dominant intellectual categories of the 20th century are secular and rational: we are in a sense taught not to be able to understand such 'irrational' phenomena as the reaction to Diana's death, or indeed anything to do with public attitudes to royalty, and are frequently embarrassed if asked to do so. Historians of the 20th century are particularly disabled - historians of medieval religion or Byzantinists at least know what questions to ask. Furthermore, we are compelled to measure things which are almost immeasurable. The great majority of the population, after all, did not leave flowers in front of the palaces or anywhere else. Over one-quarter of the adult population did not even watch the funeral on television. Most of those who were there were not weeping. Does that mean they were emotionally unaffected? On the other hand, many more watched the funeral on television than watched the Euro 96 England-Germany match, hitherto the record-breaker. Does that mean we feel more intensely about Diana than about the national game - or simply that more women watched the funeral than watched the football? And, in any case, can people articulate what they feel in ways we can understand? In due course we might know these things but at the moment we do not.

LRB 2 October 1997 | PDF Download