White, Hayden. “The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality” and “The Context in the Text: Method and Ideology in Intellectual History.” The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation. Baltimore and London. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987. 1-27 and 185-213.
White’s book consists of eight essays published between 1979 and 1985, all of which largely analyze in one way or the other the theory of narrative and the problem of representation in the human sciences (Dray). The opening essay is titled “The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality” in which White thoroughly analyzes three different ways in which past events are recorded, namely the annal , chronicle and, using the name he gives it, history proper. He starts off by indicating the importance of the narrative and how it is easily comprehensible across various cultures; in the second paragraph of this essay White writes “… far from being one code among many that a culture may utilize for endowing experience with meaning, narrative is a meta-code, a human universal on the basis of which transcultural messages about the nature of a shared reality may be transmitted.” (White, 1). White then criticizes the use of a narrative form of representation in historical discourse; he writes “Narrative becomes a problem only when we wish to give to real events the form of a story. It is because real events do not offer themselves as stories that their narrativization is so difficult.” (White, 4) He then, in a somewhat structural way of analysis, describes the main differences between the annal, chronicle and history proper forms of historiography. For annals he uses excerpts from the Annals of Saint Gall which contains a list of events that occurred in Gaul during the 8th, 9th and 10th centauries C.E, as a typical example of an annal form of historical representation. An annal is basically, as White puts it, “a list of events ordered in chronological sequence” (White, 5) done by listing years in a column on the left hand side with significant or important events written next to the year of their occurrence in the right hand side, as we see in White’s example from the Annals of Saint Gall. White points out that an annal possesses none of the characteristics of a narrative, except for perhaps a chronological sequence. White states that “…it (the annal) possesses none of the characteristics that we normally attribute to a story: no central subject, no well-marked beginning, middle and end, no peripeteia, and no identifiable narrative voice.” (White, 6) After a thorough analysis of the annal excerpts in which White strengthens his argument about the difference between annals and narratives that he pointed out earlier, he further explains the chronicle form of historical representation taking the History of France by one Richerus of Rheims as an example. White points out that a chronicle is widely considered to be a “mode of historiographical representation superior to the annals form.” (White, 16) He then writes that this superiority is largely due to the fact that a chronicle has a greater “narrative coherency” (White, 16) as it presents the events in a “storylike way” (White, 5). The similarity between the annals form and the chronicle form of historical representation is, as White points out, the way both the forms conclude or perhaps attempt to conclude; he writes “… the chronicle, like the annals but unlike the history, does not so much conclude as terminate...” (White, 16) a well stated conclution is characteristic to what “we normally expect from the well-made story.”(White, 16) This lacking of a proper conclusion is “one of the reasons why nineteenth-century editors of the medieval chronicles denied them the status of genuine “histories”.”(White, 16) In order to come up to this status of a proper history, a chronicle must provide a “summing up of the “meaning” of the chain of events with which it deals…”(White, 16). After stating the charateristics of the chronicle, White, using the Cronica of Dino Compagni, a late medieval historiography, as an example, strengthens this argument by pointing out that the Cronica is accepted as a proper history as it concludes with a moral meaning to the events recorded. It is this moralistic ending that allows Dino’s Cronica to be “generally accepted as a proper historical narrative”(White, 22) This entire discussions of the use of narrativity in the representation of past events build up to Whites thesis, which is “that narrativizing discourse serves the purpose of moralizing judgments” He then states that “What I have sought to suggest is that this value attached to narrativity in the representation of real events arises out of a desire to have real events display the coherence, integrity , fullness, and closure of an image of life that can only be imaginary.” (White, 24) Admitting that moralizing is the only way that he could think of by which a sequence of past events can be properly concluded, White ends his first essay with the question “Could we ever narrativize without moralizing?”(White, 25) In the closing essay of his book, entitled “The Context in the Text: Method and Ideology in Intellectual History”, White suggests a process to “reexamine governing concepts and strategies of interpretation……in response to new methodologies that have arisen in philosophy, literary criticism, and linguistics and that offer new ways of conceiving the tasks of historical hermeneutics.” (White, 185) White points out that the conventional way of analyzing a text in order to characterize “the ideological status” (White, 194) is largely focused on the content of the text rather than the context. He writes that to analyze a certain text “The conventional approach would be to try to identify certain generic elements of the text, themes, arguments, and so forth, in interest of establishing what the text is about, what point of view its author represents…” (White, 194). White proposes replacing this chiefly content analysis with what he calls a semiological analysis. He then semiologically analyzes a text entitled The Education of Henry Adams in detail, largely focusing on the context in which the text was originally written.
Hayden White is presently a professor of comparative literature at Stanford University. Before his book “The Content of the form” was published he was well known for his previous books also basically on literary criticism, namely “Metahistory” 1973, and “Tropics of Discourse”, 1978. My primary source is a documentary on a tragic historic incident that occurred in 79 AD. My argument is mostly about how the documentary was presented and how it seems to have certain misleading implications. The main discussion in my research paper is basically on the representation or misrepresentation of history as the documentary is also a historic representation of the past. Hayden White’s book proves to be useful as it gave me more insight on how history has been represented throughout the ages. This will allow me to observe the documentary in a better way. The book did point out some interesting topics on the representation of history that I was unaware of, however Hayden White’s style of writing, for me at the very least, frequently got confusing requiring me to reread through the essays a few times.
Capasso, Luigi. “Herculaneum victims of the volcanic eruptions of Vesuvius in 79 AD.” The Lancet. 356, Issue 9238 (2000): 1344-1346
The Lancet is a well reputed medical newspaper of the United Kingdom which was founded in 1823. In its issue on the 14th of October 2000, an article titled “Herculaneum victims of the volcanic eruptions of Vesuvius in 79 AD.” authored by Prof. L Capasso was published. The main focus of the article was to answer questions like when and how exactly did the victims of Herculaneum die, particularly those who took refuge in boat sheds on the ancient beach, when and how was the city evacuated, why did some of its residents die anyway etc. Archeological and anthropological data is used and explained in the article. As the Lancet is a medical newspaper, it mostly discusses how the answers to the questions above are deduced from the remains of the victims. As was clear from the skeletal remains, only sixteen of the victims gathered on the shore were caught on the beach by the swiftly moving surge cloud while the rest of the 250 to 300 people managed to get into the boat sheds. As stated in the article, “those who were caught in the open suffered immediate dehydration, with cranial explosion and complete burning of the bones.” (Capasso) The rest of the victims who wee trapped in the boat sheds died due to suffocation caused by the inhalation of the dense ash-laden surge cloud of the pyroclastic flows which eventually buried the entire city under volcanic debris. (Capasso) They likely died within minutes after the first pyroclastic flow swept through the area, which was during the first hour of the 25th August 79 AD. (Capasso)
Being a well reputed medical magazine, the Lancet is quite a reliable source of information. The documentary that is my primary source also gives similar information about the tragic incident of 79 AD, albeit in a different manner. Comparing the information in this and other reliable articles with that presented in the documentary I will be able to see weather or not any information was left out in the representation of this tragic event. As a whole, the article was quite informative although, as it was in a medical magazine, a lot of technical terms were used which required me to frequently use of the dictionary.
White’s book consists of eight essays published between 1979 and 1985, all of which largely analyze in one way or the other the theory of narrative and the problem of representation in the human sciences (Dray). The opening essay is titled “The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality” in which White thoroughly analyzes three different ways in which past events are recorded, namely the annal , chronicle and, using the name he gives it, history proper. He starts off by indicating the importance of the narrative and how it is easily comprehensible across various cultures; in the second paragraph of this essay White writes “… far from being one code among many that a culture may utilize for endowing experience with meaning, narrative is a meta-code, a human universal on the basis of which transcultural messages about the nature of a shared reality may be transmitted.” (White, 1). White then criticizes the use of a narrative form of representation in historical discourse; he writes “Narrative becomes a problem only when we wish to give to real events the form of a story. It is because real events do not offer themselves as stories that their narrativization is so difficult.” (White, 4) He then, in a somewhat structural way of analysis, describes the main differences between the annal, chronicle and history proper forms of historiography. For annals he uses excerpts from the Annals of Saint Gall which contains a list of events that occurred in Gaul during the 8th, 9th and 10th centauries C.E, as a typical example of an annal form of historical representation. An annal is basically, as White puts it, “a list of events ordered in chronological sequence” (White, 5) done by listing years in a column on the left hand side with significant or important events written next to the year of their occurrence in the right hand side, as we see in White’s example from the Annals of Saint Gall. White points out that an annal possesses none of the characteristics of a narrative, except for perhaps a chronological sequence. White states that “…it (the annal) possesses none of the characteristics that we normally attribute to a story: no central subject, no well-marked beginning, middle and end, no peripeteia, and no identifiable narrative voice.” (White, 6) After a thorough analysis of the annal excerpts in which White strengthens his argument about the difference between annals and narratives that he pointed out earlier, he further explains the chronicle form of historical representation taking the History of France by one Richerus of Rheims as an example. White points out that a chronicle is widely considered to be a “mode of historiographical representation superior to the annals form.” (White, 16) He then writes that this superiority is largely due to the fact that a chronicle has a greater “narrative coherency” (White, 16) as it presents the events in a “storylike way” (White, 5). The similarity between the annals form and the chronicle form of historical representation is, as White points out, the way both the forms conclude or perhaps attempt to conclude; he writes “… the chronicle, like the annals but unlike the history, does not so much conclude as terminate...” (White, 16) a well stated conclution is characteristic to what “we normally expect from the well-made story.”(White, 16) This lacking of a proper conclusion is “one of the reasons why nineteenth-century editors of the medieval chronicles denied them the status of genuine “histories”.”(White, 16) In order to come up to this status of a proper history, a chronicle must provide a “summing up of the “meaning” of the chain of events with which it deals…”(White, 16). After stating the charateristics of the chronicle, White, using the Cronica of Dino Compagni, a late medieval historiography, as an example, strengthens this argument by pointing out that the Cronica is accepted as a proper history as it concludes with a moral meaning to the events recorded. It is this moralistic ending that allows Dino’s Cronica to be “generally accepted as a proper historical narrative”(White, 22) This entire discussions of the use of narrativity in the representation of past events build up to Whites thesis, which is “that narrativizing discourse serves the purpose of moralizing judgments” He then states that “What I have sought to suggest is that this value attached to narrativity in the representation of real events arises out of a desire to have real events display the coherence, integrity , fullness, and closure of an image of life that can only be imaginary.” (White, 24) Admitting that moralizing is the only way that he could think of by which a sequence of past events can be properly concluded, White ends his first essay with the question “Could we ever narrativize without moralizing?”(White, 25) In the closing essay of his book, entitled “The Context in the Text: Method and Ideology in Intellectual History”, White suggests a process to “reexamine governing concepts and strategies of interpretation……in response to new methodologies that have arisen in philosophy, literary criticism, and linguistics and that offer new ways of conceiving the tasks of historical hermeneutics.” (White, 185) White points out that the conventional way of analyzing a text in order to characterize “the ideological status” (White, 194) is largely focused on the content of the text rather than the context. He writes that to analyze a certain text “The conventional approach would be to try to identify certain generic elements of the text, themes, arguments, and so forth, in interest of establishing what the text is about, what point of view its author represents…” (White, 194). White proposes replacing this chiefly content analysis with what he calls a semiological analysis. He then semiologically analyzes a text entitled The Education of Henry Adams in detail, largely focusing on the context in which the text was originally written.
Hayden White is presently a professor of comparative literature at Stanford University. Before his book “The Content of the form” was published he was well known for his previous books also basically on literary criticism, namely “Metahistory” 1973, and “Tropics of Discourse”, 1978. My primary source is a documentary on a tragic historic incident that occurred in 79 AD. My argument is mostly about how the documentary was presented and how it seems to have certain misleading implications. The main discussion in my research paper is basically on the representation or misrepresentation of history as the documentary is also a historic representation of the past. Hayden White’s book proves to be useful as it gave me more insight on how history has been represented throughout the ages. This will allow me to observe the documentary in a better way. The book did point out some interesting topics on the representation of history that I was unaware of, however Hayden White’s style of writing, for me at the very least, frequently got confusing requiring me to reread through the essays a few times.
Capasso, Luigi. “Herculaneum victims of the volcanic eruptions of Vesuvius in 79 AD.” The Lancet. 356, Issue 9238 (2000): 1344-1346
The Lancet is a well reputed medical newspaper of the United Kingdom which was founded in 1823. In its issue on the 14th of October 2000, an article titled “Herculaneum victims of the volcanic eruptions of Vesuvius in 79 AD.” authored by Prof. L Capasso was published. The main focus of the article was to answer questions like when and how exactly did the victims of Herculaneum die, particularly those who took refuge in boat sheds on the ancient beach, when and how was the city evacuated, why did some of its residents die anyway etc. Archeological and anthropological data is used and explained in the article. As the Lancet is a medical newspaper, it mostly discusses how the answers to the questions above are deduced from the remains of the victims. As was clear from the skeletal remains, only sixteen of the victims gathered on the shore were caught on the beach by the swiftly moving surge cloud while the rest of the 250 to 300 people managed to get into the boat sheds. As stated in the article, “those who were caught in the open suffered immediate dehydration, with cranial explosion and complete burning of the bones.” (Capasso) The rest of the victims who wee trapped in the boat sheds died due to suffocation caused by the inhalation of the dense ash-laden surge cloud of the pyroclastic flows which eventually buried the entire city under volcanic debris. (Capasso) They likely died within minutes after the first pyroclastic flow swept through the area, which was during the first hour of the 25th August 79 AD. (Capasso)
Being a well reputed medical magazine, the Lancet is quite a reliable source of information. The documentary that is my primary source also gives similar information about the tragic incident of 79 AD, albeit in a different manner. Comparing the information in this and other reliable articles with that presented in the documentary I will be able to see weather or not any information was left out in the representation of this tragic event. As a whole, the article was quite informative although, as it was in a medical magazine, a lot of technical terms were used which required me to frequently use of the dictionary.
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Dray, William H. "THE CONTENT OF THE FORM (Book Review)History & Theory. 27 Issue 3 (1988): 282-288
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