Literature and History Historical Methods Historicism Official History

Literature and History Historical Methods: Historicism & Official History [Next 2 Wks: New Historicism and Cultural Materialism]

Starting Questions What did we do last week? l Identity – of different kinds l History—what, why, how? l History is not always progressive, nor developing in a linear fashion. l History: public vs. private; facts vs. interpretation; history vs. literature/fiction l Why? l Historical methods and Time travel (-- location – a hotel -- erase the traces of the present -- hypnotize one’s mind//realism ) l

Why History? – a memento to keep (and past to immortalize), and to be fixated by; Somewhere in Time -- to learn from the past and broaden our horizons; -- identity-construction, sense-making (for individuals), legitimating (for a group of people, or disciplines), textbook 92, 94; ppt (1) -- re-interpretation/re-vision relating it to our present world and selves. (Ref. http: //www 2. tntech. edu/history/whystudy. html )

Outline l l History and Literature/Fiction Historical methods in historiography and in ‘traditional’ historical films and lit. New Criticism and History Next week

history vs. literature l在十九世紀前� 歷史與文學同屬Literature．二 者向來就有糾葛� 也有許多比較二者異同． l 如亞里斯多德《詩學》(Poetics)︰ ". . . the difference lies in the fact that the historian speaks of what has happened, the poet of the kind of thing that can happen. Hence also poetry is a more philosophical and serious business than history; for poetry speaks more of universals, history of particulars. " (ref. textbook 96 Sidney)

Questions: referentiality, text and context l l Historical discourse can be seen as discourse which hooks on to the world through its referentiality; literary discourse, on the other hand, is discourse which turns back on itself, proclaiming itself as literary through its metaphors and other dominant self-reflexive tropes. To deny literature historical significance is to give it aesthetic significance. The poet, as Sidney said in The Defense of Poesie, ‘nothing affirms and therefore never lieth’. Do you agree with this?

history vs. literature (2) 1. “Non-essential relation” --New Criticism 2. Overlapping in Realism, or the traditional History of ideas critics (e. g. Wordsworth as an example of Romanticism) To see “literature” and “history” as functionally rather than ontologically (relating to “essence”) distinguishable 3. Both are ‘narratives, ’ or ‘fictions’ (constructions) embedded in a network of texts (or discourses). (p. 93)

Historical Methods: Starting Questions l Which of the following are facts, or more factual than fictional, or apparently realistic but actually fictitious? 1. Dates (e. g. Rep. O. China’s National Birthday 10/10 ), 2. Documents (e. g. 台湾地名沿革表 source), records, reminiscences, memoirs 3. artifacts, buildings, (e. g. Romeo’s and Juliet’s houses ) 4. The Rep. of China was born in 10/10, 1911.

Historical methods History as a broad field: Ref. WWW-VL: HISTORY: METHODOLOGIES http: //vlib. iue. it/history/methods/methodologies. html l Studying history as ‘text’: (Textbook: pp. 94 -) 1. Generalization; 2. Authoritative/neutral tone 3. Tense –Simple past 4. Collection and Interpretation of “facts. ” how? l

Historical methods (2)— SELECTION OF “FACTS” History synthesis Methods facts methods Past evidence (fluid, chaotic) 1. The solid lines indicate supposed empirical methods, and the dotted lines shows inference according normal historical practice. (Berkhofer 141) Principles of methods or methodology

Historical methods (3)—from life to history” Populated unified story History-as- written synthesis facts Postulated unified flow of events (Berkhofer 145) Past-aslived evidence

Historical methods (3)—> Grand Narrative(s) or History Philoso -phy of History “Great Story” of total past Unified story of Partial past synthesi s facts “Great Past” of totality (Berkhofer 146) Unified flow of (some events) evidence

Historical methods (3)—> Grand Narrative(s) or History e. g. l E. g. 1 Textbook p. 94 denial of the Holocaust l 2 Textbook p. 97 Mid-Victorian Britain • Great Past (the Victorian Age) Great Story (of economic growth and progress) • Underlying assumption, or philosophy? 3. Textbook p. 98 Tyllyard’s The Elizabethan World Picture a homologous view of “the order” l • Great Past (the Germans during the wartime) • Great Story (how “they” reject the past. . . )

Historical methods (4)—> History as Narrative l life with plentiful events evidence fact synthesized into ‘Story’ or, according to Hayden White, organized into a chronicle Story within beginning, middle and end, with motifs (inaugural, terminating, transitional)

“Historical” Novel and Film l Definition: A historical novel is a novel in which the story is set among historical events or, more generally, where the time the action takes place in predates the time of the first publication. It is a genre popularized in the 19 th century by artists classified as Romantics, and must be distinguished from the genre of alternate history. (source: http: //en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Historical_novel ) l e. g. Walter Scott IVANHOE劫後英雄傳 Reflects the movement and totality of an age with characters as ‘types. ’ l Showing, personalizing, and emotionalizing the past. l

Components of a “Historical” Novel and Film l l Frames: at the beginning, the end, or the turning points; • narrative comments and mentioning of Facts, numbers, historical figures Credibility: • Documents -- Photograph, diary, letters, • l Witness -- First-person narrator, Embodiment & Dramatization: • • • Themes Description Plot & characterization

Components of a Historical Novel and Film e. g. Making Sense of the 60’s- 4. In a Dark Time: one clip -- Is there a frame to this segment? -- How does it establish its credibility? -- Motifs? Plot? Narrative perspective?

Components of a Historical Novel and Film e. g. (2) Textbook p. 101 – Middlemarch with • Historical references • Total view

A Postmodern Historical Film l l l 妹妹看MTV 1. How are the TV screen and its audience presented in this video? 2. How is history presented? Is it credible?

Stop and think: l What do you think about the different kinds of histories (the official, the personal, with evidence, historical novel, historical romance, biographies, etc. ) now? Are they trustworthy? Or in what ways can we learn from them? • What is wrong with having a total view of history?

New Criticism: Major Views A poem is autonomous, with an ontological status. Intentional Fallacy, Affective Fallacy l • Poetry offers a different kind of truth (poetic truth) than science. Heresy of Paraphrase (詩不可以 被翻譯) Ref. textbook p. 96

New Criticism: Methodology (1) Poetry l Parts Denotations, connotations and etymological roots l Allusions l Prosody l Relationships Among the various elements Whole l Themes pattern, tension, ambiguities, paradox, contradictions

New Criticism: Methodology (1) Narrative l Parts Point of view, l dialogue, l setting, l Plot l Characterization l Relationships among the various elements Whole l Themes pattern, tension, ambiguities, paradox, contradictions

New Criticism & History l l l Intrinsic approach; the ‘text-and-the-textalone” approach; the poem as an organic whole Denying history? “If we see that any item in a poem is to be judged only in terms of the total effect of the poem, we shall readily grant the importance for criticism of the work of the linguistic and the literary historian. ” (Brooks qud Mc. Gann 6)

New Criticism (2): ‘antihistorical’? 1. 2. Against basing textual interpretation on the author’s intention to. “Intentional Fallacy” (the author as the suncatalyst in the growth of a plant. ) Basic assumption: a good literary text should have a coherent meaning which can be universally felt by the writers and readers alike and which should not be changed by time. Quote: “If we insist on relating the text primarily to the context of its composition, we are cutting it off from that relation to life which is the relevant one. ” (Ellis qtd in Mc. Gann 8) What do you think?

Stop and Think: l l "What is history but a fable agreed upon? " - Napoleon B. Do you agree? How should we use ‘history’ in our studies of literature? Or how do we define ‘context’?

Next Week l l l Read: chap 1 pp. 111 -134; "The Garden of the Forking Paths" Obasan Chap 1 -4

Obasan—Historical Background l l l 1941, December 7 --the bombing of Pearl Harbor 1942 --evacuation of Canadian Japanese (Nikkei) from the Pacific Coast--the great mass movement in the history of Canada (Obasan 92 -93)--21, 000 people moved 1945 -- end of WW II, the Japanese given a choice between repatriation and second-time relocation 1949 --Nikkei allowed to return to B. C. 1980 s--redress movement 1981— Obasan 1988 --formal apology to Nikkei+ $21, 000 (Cdn. ) to the survivors

References: l l Mc. Gann, Jerome, ed. Historical Studies and Literary Criticism. Univ of Wisconsin Pr; Reprint edition: 1986. Berkhofer, Robert. “The Challenge of Poetics. ” The Postmodern History Reader. Ed. Keith Jenkins Routledge, 1997.