Developing a Relationship with History

I can tell where my deepest loyalties lie within the post-modernist/historicist divide when I encounter articles like this one. At heart, although I think that a passionate involvement with one's subject of study can be a good thing, when monitored carefully, I'm suspicious of that passionate involvement being considered part of the subject of study. The author here discusses a hypothetical modern reader's interpretation of a hypothetical medieval person's hypothetical erotic interactions with the act of writing...and at that point I consider the topic to be an exercise in poetics, not in history. But that's just my take, of course.