Hayden White, een historicus die opereerde binnen de traditie van de literaire kritiek, is beroemd om zijn baanbrekende werk over de historische verbeelding. Hij analyseerde nauwgezet de narratieven van 19e- en 20e-eeuwse historici en filosofen, en stelde dat historische discours een vorm van fictie is die geclassificeerd kan worden op basis van zijn structuur en taalgebruik. White daagde de notie van objectieve historische verslagen uit, en betoogde dat historici niet-gearticuleerde aannames gebruiken bij het selecteren en interpreteren van gebeurtenissen. Zijn werk heeft de geschiedtheorie fundamenteel veranderd door retorische tropen toe te passen op narratieve discours, waardoor dieper inzicht werd verkregen in de houdingen van de auteur en de historische contexten.
The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe
In White's view, beyond the surface level of the historical text, there is a deep structural, or latent, content that is generally poetic and specifically linguistic in nature. This deeper content - the metahistorical element - indicates what an appropriate historical explanation should be.
The secret of the process by which consciousness invests history with meaning resides in the content of the form,in the way our narrative capacities transform the present into a fulfillment of a past from which we would wish to have descended.
The Fiction of Narrative traces the arc and evolution of White's field- defining thought and will become standard reading for students and scholars of historiography, the theory of history, and literary studies.
Tropics of Discourse develops White's ideas on interpretation in history, on the relationship between history and the novel, and on history and historicism. Vico, Croce, Derrida, and Foucault are among the figures he assesses in this work, which also offers original interpretations of a number of literary themes, including the Wild Man and the Noble Savage. White's commentary ranges from a reappraisal of Enlightenment history to a reflective summary of the current state of literary criticism.
This book will be of interest to anyone-in any discipline-who takes the past as a serious object of study.
It is because historical discourse is actualized in its culturally significant form as a specific kind of writing that we may consider the relevance of literary theory to both the theory and the practice of historiography.
The second volume of The Ethics of Narrative completes the project of bringing together nearly all of Hayden White's uncollected essays from the last two decades of his life, including articles, essays, and previously unpublished lectures. As in the first volume, volume two features White's trenchant articulations of his influential theories, as well as his explorations of a wide range of ideas and authors at the frontiers of critical theory, literature, and historical studies. These include the concept of utopia in history, modernism and postmodernism, constructivism, the conceptualization of historical periods such as "the Sixties" and "the Enlightenment," the representation of the Holocaust in scholarly and literary writing, as well as essays on Frank Kermode, Saul Friedländer, and Krzysztof Pomian.
"[White] has clearly made significant advances in laying a foundation for a better understanding of the intricate interaction between narrative representation and what it purports to represent in both history and literature."--American Historical Review.
Kniha Tropika diskursu Haydena Whitea, který je znám svým pojetím "metahistorie", jež klade důraz na narativní povahu historického diskursu, patří v humanitních vědách již ke klasickým dílům. Jde svým způsobem o autorovu originální "rozpravu o metodě", teorii toho, co by bylo možné nazvat tropologickým rozuměním. Její význam se ani zdaleka neomezuje na techniku literárního rozboru či interpretaci historie, jejím základem je filosoficky fundované, syntetické pojetí kognitivního vztahu k realitě, prostředkované právě "diskursem". V tomto smyslu je Whiteova kniha svébytnou a důležitou alternativou jak k tradiční i moderní hermeneutice (H. G. Gadamer), tak například k Ricoeurově narativnímu porozumění. Tropus podle Whitea není ani ozdoba řeči, ani technika omezující se na umělecký jazyk, nýbrž nástroj, jehož funkcí je snaha o adekvátnější uchopení popisované skutečnosti. Interpretace historických, literárních či teoretických textů se pak neukazuje jako (subjektivní) omezení, nýbrž jako obecná podmínka kulturní racionality.
Mit den vier Tropen der Metapher, der Metonymie, der Synekdoche und der Ironie erfasst er systematisch die ? poetische Logik? des historischen Diskurses und bezieht dessen Formen der Darstellung historischen Geschehens auf Grundformen der menschlichen Weltaneignung.