محتوى الشكل: الخطاب السردي والتمثيل التاريخي

by Hayden White, هايدن وايت, نايف الياسين (ترجمة)

«محتوى الشكل: الخطاب السردي والتمثيل التاريخي» كتاب للفيلسوف والمؤرخ الأميركي هايدن وايت وهو نتاج بحثٍ دام 7 سنواتٍ حول تأويل النصوص وسرد التاريخ. صدرت ترجمته عن مشروع نقل المعارف التابع لهيئة البحرين للثقافة والآثار. أنجز الترجمة نايف الياسين.
يحاول هايدن وايت من خلال كتاباته وأفكاره التقريب بين مفهومي الأدب والتاريخ، إيماناً بفكرة مفادها أن السردية في شرح التاريخ تضفي على النص بعداً بلاغيا أخاذاً وجانباً غير هامشي من التشويق، من دون أن يفقد صفة المطابقة بين ما هو مدون وما قد حدث فعلاً في زمن ما.
واستناداً إلى منطق السيميائية والدلالات التي تحققها عبر نقل معان أو حالات شعورية للمتلقي وإسقاطها على جوهر السرد يتبين للقارئ- كما يذكر وايت- أن السرد قادر على تشكيل نظام فعال للإنتاج الخطابي يمكن للقارئ من خلاله عيش علاقة خيالية مع ظروف وجودهم الواقعية.
يضم هذا الكتاب ثماني مقالات اختارها المؤلف المهتم بالنصوص ذات البعد التاريخي ليضع أمام القارئ تفاصيل وحقائق مهمة جاءت بصبغة سردية تعالج الأحداث بطريقة غير اعتيادية عقب عليها وايت ليثبت موقفه في التصدي لمن يعتقد بأن النصوص التاريخية محكومة بنسق جامد ورتيب.

Genres: History, Philosophy, Theory, Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, Criticism, 20th Century

479 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Hayden White was a historian in the tradition of literary criticism, perhaps most famous for his work Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe (1973). He was professor emeritus at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and held position of professor of comparative literature at Stanford University.

White received his B.A. from Wayne State University in 1951 and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Michigan (1952 and 1956, respectively). While an undergraduate at Wayne State, White studied history under William J. Bossenbrook, who inspired several undergraduates who later went on to achieve academic distinction in the field of history, including White, H. D. "Harry" Harootunian, and Arthur C. Danto (The Uses of History).

Hayden V. White has made contributions to the philosophy of history and literary theory. His books and essays analyze the narratives of nineteenth-and twentieth-century historians and philosophers, suggesting that historical discourse is a form of fiction that can be classified and studied on the basis of its structure and its use of language. White ultimately attacks the notion that modern history texts present objective, accurate explanations of the past; instead, he argues that historians and philosophers operate under unarticulated assumptions in arranging, selecting, and interpreting events. These assumptions, White asserts, can be identified by examining the form and structure of texts themselves, providing valuable information about the attitudes of the author and the context in which he or she has written. Furthermore, as White postulates in Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe, historical discourse can be classified into the literary patterns of tragedy, comedy, romance, and irony.

In a review in the Journal of Modern History, Allan Megill wrote: "Taken together, White's books and essays have done much to alter the theory of history. Although his focus on trope and narrative is far from what most historians are interested in, they are all aware of his work." The critic added that White "is able to speak fluently and interestingly on an astonishingly wide variety of matters."

Most scholars agree that White's most important work is Metahistory. The book grew out of its author's interest in the reasons why people study—and write—history. Dictionary of Literary Biography contributor Frank Day observed that in Metahistory White "adapted ideas from Giambattista Vico and other students of rhetoric and literary history to produce an intricate analysis of nineteenth-century historians in terms of their methods of emplotment. . . . White's broad purpose in Metahistory is to trace how the nineteenth-century historians escaped from the Irony that dominated Enlightenment historiography and from the 'irresponsible faith' of the Romantics, only to lapse back into Irony at the end of the century." The implications for historians and literary theoreticians lay in the "application of rhetorical tropes to narrative discourse," to quote Day.

Reviews

[Abe Something · Rating 4 out of 5]

Given - History is a collection of recorded events.
Given - The events of history are written down by a human.
Given - Every event in history is not recorded, only those of note.

What does this mean? It means history is a structured narrative. It means that someone chooses what events we remember. It means the past is flavored by the perspective of its author. History is closer to art than it is to science. History is a representation of events, never, because the act of writing does not allow it, recorded accurately. History is not a snapshot but a watercolor inviting interpretation.

We are inventing the past as we record it in the present. Now go read some Borges.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

three sets of essays form this collection: one set on analyzing history as narrative and the content inherent in the form, one set looking at the ideologies that came to form the discipline of history in the nineteenth century, and one set that critiques/analyzes some heroes of white's: foucault, jameson, ricoeur.

our historiography course liked the last essay (which provides a semiological reading of The Education of Henry Adams) the best.

[Humphrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

White offers fine summaries of the works of some major theorists of the second half of the twentieth century, but his own contributions in this volume seem quite minor. One gets the feeling he's mostly just trying to introduce historians to developments from philosophy and literary studies. The first, second, and final essays of the volume are where White's own position emerge most. The first, looking at medieval annals and chronicles, concludes that the "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 is and can only be imaginary" (24). The second is a sweeping survey of the state of the scholarship on historical and narrative method. White seems to stand closest to Ricoeur, asserting that human events take on narrative structure because they are the product of human action; to oppose "real" to "imaginary" as if it were "true" to "false" is to attempt an impossible distinction between 1) narrative and events, as well as 2) the past and discourse about it. The final essay produces a "semiological" reading of The Education of Henry Adams: we can't read the text as an index of a historical period, only as an example of how "the cultural resources of [Adams'] historical moment and place could be fashioned": not what the text "says" but the ways (codes) its discourse produces meaning (thus the title, The Content of the Form) (212). If this sounds a lot like what had already been happening for a dozen years in literary studies, it is perhaps at least distinguished by this historicist twist.

[Miss · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favourite book of Hayden White. This collection of essays gives you a more thought-through idea of White's central ideas, a bit more polemical than his older works but that's what makes the essays more thrilling to read. Do you want to know why historians often abhorr Hayden White? Read this book, he basically smashes historiography's basic assumptions of scientism, objectivity and neutral writing.

[Valorie Clark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting ideas, but presented in the most convoluted and dense way possible. Hayden White was a genius, but you'd be hard-pressed to understand that because his writing reads like he decided to show off by using a thesaurus for every word besides conjunctions. And you'll need at least one thesaurus and a dictionary to understand this book. If you dedicate a ton of time to it though, it'll shake your world up.

[Faruk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Narrative is telling stories, so how can we tell the real from the imaginary? Haha, that's a good one. He does a great job of looking at the genealogy of this debate, looking at lists of dates, chronicles, and then the debate about narrative, and whether it is scientific enough for history to become a science, or if it is bound up with imaginative narrative. Interesting commentary on Foucault, and clearly in bed with Ricouer (they exchanged notes while writing).

[María · Rating 3 out of 5]

Síntesis: los historiadores son escritores de ficción frustrados.

[homoness · Rating 2 out of 5]

boring af.

[Kaoyi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro compuesto por ocho ensayos que en general me han parecido bastantes interesantes , eso si este libro para leerlo tienes que tener unos conocimientos previos sobre tendencias historiográficas e historia porque sino no te vas a enterar de mucho.

Recomendado a estudiantes de la carrera de Historia sobre todo.

[Tory S. Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Primarily concerned with history vs. narrative, with narrative as the legitimizing force in the question of narrative's bearing on reality. In representation of reality, historical discourse (whether or not it manages to qualify as discourse) is insufficient if lacking narrative dimension.

[Arturo Sierra]

Capítulos aquí, en Metahistoria y otros valen por lectura. A terminar en fecha incierta.

[فلاح رحيم · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hayden White introduces himself in the last chapter of the book as a structuralist and post-structuralist and I have more than doubts about the structuralist ahistorical illusions. However, his book "The Content of the Form" is a perfect introduction to the field of narrative discourse in fiction and history. The book offers clear, deep and comprehensive introductions to some of the most demanding figures in the field. The chapters on Foucault, Fredric Jameson (yes even this secretive Marxist), and Paul Ricoeur are enough to earn the book the five stars. Still there are insightful chapters on the value of narrativity in the representation of reality, and the major questions in contemporary historical theory. Chapter four introduced me for the first time to an important and very interesting German theorist of history Johann Gustav Droysen (1808-84).
White proves in this book that you do not need to agree with a thinker on the theoretical level to enjoy and benefit from his/her writing. In fact, I started to rethink my prejudice against structuralism because of him.

[mahatmanto · Rating 4 out of 5]

menurut saya,
ini memang kumpulan esai yang ditulis untuk mengumpulkan pendapat pemikir sejarah sebelum dia [droysen, foucault, jameson, dan ricoeur:], dan juga pendapatnya sendiri mengenai pendapat-pendapat itu tadi.
mengikuti review teman-teman di GR, saya pun memulai membaca bab terakhir [the context in the text:], sesudah membaca intronya.
ya baru di intro dan bab terakhir itu saja saya membaca buku ini.

[Jack Markman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kant begins his logic, his last book, by saying that 'the source of all errror is metaphor. Well, too bad. He is wrong. Metaphor is maybe the source of all error, but is is also the source of all truth, too.

[Aroua]

Wonderful!