HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

''Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-century Europe'' is a work of
historiography Historiography is the study of the methods used by historians in developing history as an academic discipline. By extension, the term ":wikt:historiography, historiography" is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiog ...
by
Hayden White Hayden V. White (July 12, 1928 – March 5, 2018) was an American historian in the tradition of literary criticism, perhaps most famous for his work '' Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe'' (1973/2014). Career W ...
first published in 1973. On the second page of his introduction, White stated: The theoretical framework is outlined in the first 50 pages of the book, which consider in detail eight major figures of 19th-century history and the philosophy of history. The larger context of historiography and writing in general is also considered. White's approach uses systematically a fourfold structural
schema Schema may refer to: Science and technology * SCHEMA (bioinformatics), an algorithm used in protein engineering * Schema (genetic algorithms), a set of programs or bit strings that have some genotypic similarity * Schema.org, a web markup vocab ...
with two terms mediating between a pair of opposites.


Synopsis

According to White, historians begin their work by constituting a chronicle of events which is to be organized into a coherent story. These are the two preliminary steps before processing the material into a plot which is argumented as to express an ideology. Thus the historical work is "a verbal structure in the form of a narrative prose discourse that purports to be a model, or icon, of past structures and processes in the interest of explaining what they were by representing them". For the typologies of emplotment, argumentation and ideologies White refers to works by
Northrop Frye Herman Northrop Frye (July 14, 1912 – January 23, 1991) was a Canadian literary critic and literary theorist, considered one of the most influential of the 20th century. Frye gained international fame with his first book, ''Fearful Symmetr ...
, Stephen Pepper and
Karl Mannheim Karl Mannheim (born Károly Manheim, 27 March 1893 – 9 January 1947) was a Hungarian sociologist and a key figure in classical sociology as well as one of the founders of the sociology of knowledge. Mannheim is best known for his book '' Id ...
. His four basic emplotments are provided by the archetypical genres of
romance Romance may refer to: Common meanings * Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings ** Romantic orientation, the classification of the sex or gender with which a pers ...
,
comedy Comedy is a genre of dramatic works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. Origins Comedy originated in ancient Greec ...
,
tragedy A tragedy is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a tragic hero, main character or cast of characters. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy is to invoke an accompanying catharsi ...
and
satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of exposin ...
. The modes of argumentation, following Pepper's 'adequate root metaphors' are formist, organist, mechanicist and contextualist. Among the main types of Ideology White adopts
anarchy Anarchy is a form of society without rulers. As a type of stateless society, it is commonly contrasted with states, which are centralized polities that claim a monopoly on violence over a permanent territory. Beyond a lack of government, it can ...
,
conservatism Conservatism is a Philosophy of culture, cultural, Social philosophy, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, Convention (norm), customs, and Value (ethics and social science ...
, radicalism and
liberalism Liberalism is a Political philosophy, political and moral philosophy based on the Individual rights, rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, the right to private property, and equality before the law. ...
. White affirms that
elective affinities ''Elective Affinities'' (German: ''Die Wahlverwandtschaften''), also translated under the title ''Kindred by Choice'', is the third novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, published in 1809. Situated around the city of Weimar, the book relates the ...
link the three different aspects of a work and only four combinations (out of 64) are without internal inconsistencies or 'tensions'. The limitation arises through a general mode of functioning - representation, reduction, integration or negation, which White assimilates to one of the four main tropes:
metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide, or obscure, clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are usually meant to cr ...
,
metonymy Metonymy () is a figure of speech in which a concept is referred to by the name of something associated with that thing or concept. For example, the word " suit" may refer to a person from groups commonly wearing business attire, such as sales ...
,
synecdoche Synecdoche ( ) is a type of metonymy; it is a figure of speech that uses a term for a part of something to refer to the whole (''pars pro toto''), or vice versa (''totum pro parte''). The term is derived . Common English synecdoches include '' ...
and
irony Irony, in its broadest sense, is the juxtaposition of what, on the surface, appears to be the case with what is actually or expected to be the case. Originally a rhetorical device and literary technique, in modernity, modern times irony has a ...
. Structuralists as
Roman Jakobson Roman Osipovich Jakobson (, ; 18 July 1982) was a Russian linguist and literary theorist. A pioneer of structural linguistics, Jakobson was one of the most celebrated and influential linguists of the twentieth century. With Nikolai Trubetzk ...
or Emile Benveniste have used mostly an opposition between the first two of them but White refers to an earlier classification, adopted by
Giambattista Vico Giambattista Vico (born Giovan Battista Vico ; ; 23 June 1668 – 23 January 1744) was an Italian philosopher, rhetorician, historian, and jurist during the Italian Enlightenment. He criticized the expansion and development of modern rationali ...
and contrasts metaphor with irony. The exemplary figures chosen by White present the
ideal type Ideal type (), also known as pure type, is a typological term most closely associated with the sociologist Max Weber (1864–1920). For Weber, the conduct of social science depends upon the construction of abstract, hypothetical concepts. The "id ...
s of historians and philosophers.


Reception

Frank Ankersmit Franklin Rudolf Ankersmit (born 20 March 1945, Deventer, Netherlands) is professor of intellectual history and historical theory at the University of Groningen. Ankersmit, member of the family of textile manufacturers Ankersmit, initially studied ...
has forcefully asserted the importance of ''Metahistory'' for the English speaking world. In the view of Ankersmit and like-minded scholars, White's work has made obsolete the view of language as neutral medium in historiography and has provided a way to treat methodological issues at a level higher than elementary propositions and
atomic fact In logic and analytic philosophy, an atomic sentence is a type of declarative sentence which is either true or false (may also be referred to as a proposition, statement or truthbearer) and which cannot be broken down into other simpler sentences ...
s. So, with it, "philosophy of history finally, belatedly, underwent its
linguistic turn The linguistic turn was a major development in Western philosophy during the early 20th century, the most important characteristic of which is the focusing of philosophy primarily on the relations between language, language users, and the world. ...
and became part of the contemporary intellectual scene." Norman Levitt has identified White as "the most magisterial spokesman" for
relativist Relativism is a family of philosophical views which deny claims to absolute objectivity within a particular domain and assert that valuations in that domain are relative to the perspective of an observer or the context in which they are assess ...
and
postmodernist Postmodernism encompasses a variety of artistic, Culture, cultural, and philosophical movements that claim to mark a break from modernism. They have in common the conviction that it is no longer possible to rely upon previous ways of depicting ...
historiography, where " en one particular narrative prevails, the dirty work is invariably done by 'rhetoric', never evidence and logic, which are, in any case, simply sleight-of-language designations for one kind of rhetorical strategy". Be that as it may, it is unclear whether White himself would care to be closely identified with relativist and postmodernist schools of thought, given his sharp critiques of several key figures associated with those schools (not only postmodernism's outspoken official proponent, Jean-Francois Lyotard, but also—and more directly—certain unofficial
poststructuralist Post-structuralism is a philosophical movement that questions the objectivity or stability of the various interpretive structures that are posited by structuralism and considers them to be constituted by broader systems of Power (social and poli ...
exponents such as
Michel Foucault Paul-Michel Foucault ( , ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French History of ideas, historian of ideas and Philosophy, philosopher who was also an author, Literary criticism, literary critic, Activism, political activist, and teacher. Fo ...
,
Roland Barthes Roland Gérard Barthes (; ; 12 November 1915 – 25 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popu ...
and
Jacques Derrida Jacques Derrida (; ; born Jackie Élie Derrida;Peeters (2013), pp. 12–13. See also 15 July 1930 – 9 October 2004) was a French Algerian philosopher. He developed the philosophy of deconstruction, which he utilized in a number of his texts, ...
, whom White dubbed "absurdist critics"). What is clear is that White was, at the very least, stimulated by the ideas of several of these figures, particularly Barthes (whom White honored in ''The Content of the Form'' with an epigraph Le fait n'a jamais qu'une existence linguistique"and the rueful remark that Barthes has been "profoundly missed" since his death) and Foucault (with whose work White demonstrates intense engagement in the essay "Foucault's discourse: The Historiography of Anti-Humanism"). Furthermore, White has denied the charge of relativism, averring that the reality of events in the past is not contradicted by literary portrayals of those events. Along similar lines, White may also be regarded as a traditional moralist, inasmuch as he has asked of historical and fictional narrative, " what other grounds
han moralism Han may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * "Han", a fifth season episode of ''The West Wing'' * Han (musician), born Han Ji-sung, a South Korean singer-songwriter, rapper, and record producer, member of Stray Kids * Han Lue, a character ...
could a narrative of real events possibly conclude? ��What else could narrative closure consist of than the passage from one moral order to another?" For several of the reasons given above, White's ideas are somewhat controversial among academic historians, who have expressed both enthusiasm for and frustration with ''Metahistory''. For instance,
Arthur Marwick Arthur John Brereton Marwick (29 February 1936 – 27 September 2006) was a British social historian, who served for many years as Professor of History at the Open University. His research interests lay primarily in the history of Britain in th ...
praised it as "a brilliant analysis of the rhetorical techniques of some famous early 19th-century historians ... ho wrotewell before the emergence of professional history." Yet in the very next breath Marwick complained that "White seems to have made very little acquaintanceship with what historians write today."Arthur Marwick, ''The New Nature of History: Knowledge, Evidence, Language'' (Houndsmills: Palgrave, 2001) p. 14.


References


Sources

*Hayden White, ''Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in 19th-century Europe'', 1973 {{ISBN, 0-8018-1761-7 1973 non-fiction books Books about historiography Books about tropes English-language non-fiction books