Hayden White’s Theory of History as Narrative in the Light of New Historicism

Abstract

The article aims to shed light on Hayden White’s thoughts and notions in terms of the usage of historical narrative. The article touches on White’s assumptions that history is like narrative, or history resembles literature and fiction when it comes to the techniques used in constituting it. Hayden White presents several strategies, which he believes that historians use in their writing of historical texts. First, he concentrates on the rhetorical aspect of history writing which is considered a poetic act. This prefigurative act consists of four tropes of figurative language, which are metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony. Second, Hayden argues, historians use in their texts certain modes such as romance, tragedy, comedy, and satire to determine the type of the texts; these modes are called explanation by formal argument. Third, and lastly, White concentrates on the type of closure of the historical narratives that the historians use, this mode is called explanation by ideological implication where historians show the influence of the period that was imposed on them.

Keywords

• Hayden White
• History
• Narrative
• New Historicism
• Metahistory

References

1. Barry, P. (2009). Beginning theory: An introduction to literary and cultural theory. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.
2. Bennett, A., & Royle, N. (2009). An introduction to literature, criticism and theory. Harlow, U.K: Pearson/Longman.
3. Bhutan, K.S. (2014). A History of Historiography: A Review and Critique of the Modes of Writing History from Antiquity to contemporary". An International Refereed e-Journal of Literary Explorations, Vol. 2 Issue I.
4. Bressler, C. E. (2003). Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice. New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.
5. Frederick, G.M. (1992). Hayden White on Historical Narrative: A Critique (Master's degree). Retrieved from https://ir.icscanada.edu/
6. Greenblatt, S. (2005). Renaissance self-fashioning: From More to Shakespeare. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
7. Gunn, G. B. (1988). The culture of criticism and the criticism of culture. New York: Oxford University Press.
8. Muller, N. (2013). Theoretical and Critical Perspectives Week 5, Literature and History: New Historicism. Available online:http://www.nadinemuller.org.uk/wpcontent/uploads/2013/11/Theory-Week-5-New-Historicism.pdf.

9. Pepper, S. C. (1942). World hypotheses: A study in evidence. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
10. White, H. V. (1973). Metahistory: The historical imagination in nineteenth-century Europe. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
11. Wilson, R., & Dutton, R. (1992). New historicism and Renaissance drama. London: Longman.