Dont' understand Hayden White, anyone? (1 Viewer)

[green_appletini]

Hey Guys,

Ok this is probably a bit late, i'm just trying to study stuff about Hayden White (my trial is TOMORROW ) and i was wondering if anyone can explain this to me!>__<

Well, basically White suggests that the Western literary tradition prescribes 4 structures of emplotment or ways of fashioning events into a narrative: Romance, Comedy, Tragedy and Satire.
But i don't know what the significance is...is he saying that history writing seems to follow this trend? But what's the point of pointing this out??

This is sort of urgent! it'll be great if anyone can help!

love, marilia

 

[Caratacus]

The way I read this, I think a major point of Hayden White is that "History" is a narrative, and therefore a distortion of reality. Historians force their material into the mould of one of these types of emplotment - but that process in itself is a falsifying or at least shaping of whatever "facts" made up the original material.

It's one more version of the postmodernist idea that history is essentially a fiction.

Thats my $00.02!

 

[Caratacus]

Have a look at this site - it might help:

http://www.lehigh.edu/~ineng/syll/syll-metahistory.html

Good luck!

 

[green_appletini]

thanx heaps! It's like 10:13pm and i have maths 2morrow morning as well....i dunno if it's too late to leave the rest of my studying till tomorrow...hmmm...haha~I'll have 1.5hrs to study after i do my maths exam tomorrow