White - Interpretation in History

Interpretation in History
Author(s): Hayden White

Source: New Literary History, Vol. 4, No. 2, On Interpretation: II (Winter, 1973), pp. 281-314
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
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in History
Interpretation
HaydenWhite
HEORISTS OF HISTORIOGRAPHY generally agree that all histori-

cal narrativescontain an irreducibleand inexpungeableele-
ment of interpretation.The historianhas to interprethis ma-
terialsin orderto constructthe movingpatternof imagesin which the
formof the historicalprocessis to be mirrored.And this because the
historicalrecord is both too full and too sparse. On the one hand,
thereare always more factsin the record than the historiancan pos-
siblyinclude in his narrativerepresentation of a given segmentof the
historicalprocess. And so the historianmust "interpret"his data by
excludingcertainfactsfromhis account as irrelevantto his narrative
purpose. On the other hand, in his effortsto reconstruct"what hap-
pened" in any given period of history,the historianinevitablymust
include in his narrativean account of some eventor complexof events
for which the facts that would permita plausible explanationof its
occurrenceare lacking. And this means that the historianmust "in-
terpret"his materialsby fillingin the gaps in his informationon infer-
ential or speculativegrounds.A historicalnarrativeis thus necessarily
a mixtureof adequately and inadequately explained events,a con-
geriesof establishedand inferredfacts,at once a representation that is
an interpretation and an interpretation that passes for an explanation
of the whole processmirroredin the narrative.
Preciselybecause theoristsgenerallyadmit the ineluctablyinterpreta-
tive aspect of historiography,theyhave tended to subordinatestudyof
the problemof interpretation to that of explanation.Once it is admitted
that all historiesare inrsome sense interpretations,it becomes necessary
to determinethe extentto which historians'explanationsof past events
can qualifyas objective,if not rigorouslyscientific, accountsof reality.
And historicaltheoristsfor the past twenty-five years have therefore
triedto clear up the epistemologicalstatusof historicalrepresentations
and to establishtheirauthorityas explanations,ratherthan to study

282 NEW LITERARY HISTORY
varioustypesof interpretations metwithin historiography.I

To be sure, the problemof interpretation in historyhas been dealt
within efforts to analyze the workof the great "metahistorians."It is
generallythoughtthat "speculativephilosophersof history"such as
Hegel, Marx, Spengler,and Toynbee trade in more or less interesting
"interpretations" of historyratherthan in the putative"explanations"
which theyclaim to have provided. But the work of such "metahis-
torians" is usually conceived to differradicallyfrom that of the so-
called "proper historian,"who pursuesmore modest aims, eschewing
the impulseto solve "the riddleof history"and to identifythe plan or
goal of the historicalprocessas a whole. The "properhistorian,"it is
usually contended,seeks to explain what happenedin the past by pro-
viding a preciseand accurate reconstruction of the eventsreportedin
the documents. He does thispresumablyby suppressingas far as pos-
sible his impulseto interpretthe data, or at least by indicatingin his
narrativewhere he is merelyrepresenting the facts and where he is
interpreting them. Thus, in historicaltheory,explanationis conceived
to stand over against interpretation as clearly discernibleelementsof
every"proper"historicalrepresentation.In "metahistory," by contrast,
the explanatoryand the interpretative aspects of the narrative tend to
be run together and to be confused in such a way as to dissolve its
authority as eithera representationof "what happened" in the past or
a valid explanationof whyit happenedas it did.2
Now, in thisessayI shall argue that the distinctionbetween"proper
history"and "metahistory" obscuresmorethan it illuminatesabout the
nature of interpretationin historiography in general. Moreover, I
I This generalization is more true of American and British theorists than of

Continental European ones. For a representativeselection of approaches to the
problem of historical explanation developed over the last twenty-five years in the
United States, Canada, and Great Britain, see W. H. Dray, ed., Philosophical
Analysis and History (New York, 1966). Dray summarizes the principal issues in
his own Philosophy of History (Englewood Cliffs,N. J., 1964); but see also Louis
O. Mink, "Philosophical Analysis and Historical Understanding," Review of
Metaphysics, 21, No. 4 (June 1968), 667-98. The Continental European interest
in the problem of historical interpretationhas developed within the context of the
general interest in hermeneutics. See Arthur Child, Interpretation: A General
Theory (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1965), and idem, "Five Conceptions of His-
tory," Ethics, 68, No. I (Oct. 1957), 28-38.
2 The term "metahistory"is used as a synonymfor "speculative philosophy of
history"by NorthropFrye in "New Directions from Old," Fables of Identity (New
York, 1963), PP. 52-66. On speculative philosophy of history, see Dray, Phi-
losophy of History,pp. 59 ff.,and W. H. Walsh, Introduction to the Philosophyof
History (London, 1961), Ch. iii. On the conception of "speculative philosophyof
history"as implicit mythopoesis,see Karl L6with, Meaning in History: The Theo-
logical Implications of the Philosophyof History (Chicago, 1949).

INTERPRETATION IN HISTORY 283
shall maintainthat therecan be no "properhistory"withoutthe pre-

suppositionof a full-blown"metahistory"by which to justifythose
interpretative strategiesnecessaryforthe representationof a given seg-
mentof the historicalprocess. In takingthisline, I continuea tradition
of historicaltheoryestablishedduring the nineteenthcenturyat the
time of history'sconstitutionas an academic discipline.This tradition
tookshape in oppositionto the speciousclaim, made by Ranke and his
epigoni,forthe scientificrigorof historiography.
During the nineteenthcentury,fourmajor theoristsof historiography
rejected the mythof objectivityprevailingamong Ranke's followers.
Hegel, Droysen,Nietzsche,and Croce all viewed interpretation as the
verysoul of historiography, and each triedto workout a classification
of its types. Hegel, for example, distinguishedamong four types of
interpretation within the class of what he called Reflectivehistoriog-
raphy: Universal, Pragmatic, Critical, and Conceptual.3 Droysen,
writing in the 1860s, also discernedfour possibleinterpretativestrate-
gies in historical
writing:Causal, Conditional,Psychological,and Ethi-
cal.4 Nietzsche, in "The Use and Abuse of History," conceived of four
approachesto historicalrepresentation:
Monumental,Antiquarian,
Critical,and his own "Superhistorical"approach.5 And, finally,Croce
purportedto findfourdifferent philosophicalpositionsfromwhich his-
toriansof the nineteenthcenturyhad claimed,with differentdegreesof
legitimacy,to make sense of the historical
record: Romantic, Idealist,
and Critical.6
Positivist,
3 G. W. F. Hegel, Vorlesungen iiber die Philosophie der Geschichte (Frankfurt

am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 197o), pp. 4 ff. By "Reflective" historiography,
Hegel means historywrittenfrom a self-consciouslycritical point of view and in
the full awareness of the temporal distance between the historian and the events
about which he writes. This in contrast to "Original" (urspriingliche) historiog-
raphy, in which the historian writes as it were "naively" about events in his own
present, in the manner of Thucydides, on the one side, and "Philosophical"
(philosophische) historiography,in which a philosopher, reflectingon the works
of historians,attempts to derive the general laws or principles characterizingthe
historical process as a whole, on the other. Within the class of "Reflective" his-
toriography,Hegel draws further distinctions on the basis of the critical self-
consciousness of the historian, from the "naively" reflectiveUniversal historian
(such as Livy) to the "sentimental" Conceptual historiansof his own time (such as
Niebuhr).
4 J. G. Droysen, "Grundriss der Historik," in Historik: Vorlesungen der Enzy-
klopiidie und Methodologie der Geschichte,ed. Rudolf Hubner, 3rd ed. (Munich:
R. Oldenbourg, 1958), pp. 340-43-
5 Friedrich Nietzsche, Vom Nutzen und Nachteil der Historie fuir das Leben
(Basel: Verlag Birkhauser,n. d.), pp. 17-27.
6 Benedetto Croce, History: Its Theory and Practice, tr. Douglas Ainslee (New
York, I96o), pp. 263 ff.

The fourfoldnatureof theseclassifications of the modes of historio-

graphical interpretation is itselfsuggestive,and I will commenton its
significanceforan understanding of interpretation
in generallater. For
the momentI want to dwell upon the different reasonswhich each of
thesetheorists gave forinsistingon the ineluctablyintepretative element
in everyhistoricalnarrativeworthyof the name. First, all of these
theoristsrejectedthe Rankean conceptionof the "innocenteye" of the
historianand the notion that the elementsof the historicalnarrative,
the "facts,"were apodicticallyprovidedratherthan constituted by the
historian'sown agency. All of themstressedthe active,inventiveaspect
of the historian'sputative"inquiry"into "what had reallyhappened"
in the past. For Droysen,interpretation was necessarysimplybecause
the historicalrecordwas incomplete.If we can say withsome certitude
"what happened," we cannot alwayssay, on the basis of appeal to the
record,"why" it happenedas it did. The recordhad to be interpreted,
and this meant "seeing realitiesin past events,realitieswith that cer-
tain plenitudeof conditionswhich theymust have had in order that
theymightbecome realities." This "seeing" was a cognitiveact, and,
in Droysen'sview, it had to be distinguished fromn the more obviously
"artistic"activityin which the historianconstructedan appropriate
literaryrepresentation of the "realities"thusseen in a prose discourse.
Even in representation, however, interpretation was necessary,since
historiansmightchooseon aestheticgroundsdifferent by
plot-structures
which to endow sequencesof eventswith different meanings typesof
as
stories.7
Nietzsche,by contrast,insistedthat interpretation was necessaryin
historiography due to the nature of that "objectivity"for which the
historianstrived. This objectivitywas not that of the scientistor the
judge in a courtof law, but ratherthat of the artist,more specifically
that of the dramatist.The historian'staskwas to thinkdramatistically,
thatis to say, "to thinkone thingwithanother,and weave the elements
into a singlewhole,withthepresumption thatthe unityof plan mustbe
put into the objects if it is not already there." Nietzscheprofessedto
be able to imagine "a kind of historicalwritingthat had no drop of
commonfactin it and yetcould claim to be called in thehighestdegree
objective."8 Moreover,he denied that the value of historylay in the
7 Droysen, pp. 339, 344, 361-62. The translationis from E. B. Andrews' English
version of Droysen's work, Outline of the Principles of History (Boston, 1893),
p. 26.
8 Nietzsche, p. 57. The translationsfrom this work quoted in the text are by
Adrian Collins, in The Use and Abuse of History (Indianapolis and New York,
1957), PP. 37-38.

disclosureof factspreviously unknownor in the generalization that

mightbe producedby reflection on thefacts. "In otherdisciplines,"
he observed, "thegeneralizations are themostimportant things,as they
containthelaws." But ifthehistorian's generalizations are to standas
laws,he pointedout,then"thehistorian's laboris lost;fortheresidue
of truthcontainedin them,aftertheobscureand insolublepartis re-
moved,is nothing but the commonest knowledge.The smallestrange
of experience will teachit." On the contrary, he concluded,the real
value of history lay "in inventing ingenious variations on a: probably
commonplace theme, raising popularmelody universal
in the to a sym-
bolandshowing whata worldofdepth,powerand beautyexistsin it."9
Hegeland Croceof coursewereunwilling to go so farin theircon-
ceptualizations of the historian's interpretativeactivities.Both were
concernedto establish the cognitive authorityof thehistorian's repre-
sentationsof the past,and bothinsistedthatthe historian's efforts to
makesenseof thefactshad to be guidedby a kindof criticalself-con-
sciousnessthatwas specifically philosophicalin nature.ButlikeDroysen
and Nietzsche, Hegeland Crocealikeplacedhistoriography amongthe
literaryartsand soughtto groundthe historian's insights intoreality
in a poeticintuition of theparticular.Wheretheydiffered frommost
of theirphilosophical successorswas in theirbeliefthatpoetrywas a
formof knowledge, indeedthebasisof all knowledge(scientific, reli-
gious, and philosophical), and in theirconviction that history, like
otherformalizations of poeticinsight, was as much a "making"(an
inventio)as it was a "finding" of thefactsthatcomprised thestructure
ofitsperceptions.10
Contemporary philosophers, working undertheconviction thatpoetic
9 Ibid., p. 59 (translation,p. 39).

Io It is frequentlyoverlooked by commentatorson Hegel's idea of historythat
his most comprehensive discussion of history-writing is to be found, not in his
Philosophie der Geschichte, but in his Vorlesungen uber die Asthetik,Dritter Teil,
Drittes Kapitel, which is entitled "Die Poesie." Hegel treats history-writing as a
form of prose poetry,differingfrom poetryin general not by its aim and form but
by its content, which is the "prosaic" events of daily life. He denies, of course,
that historyis a "free art," because the historian is bound to the representation
of the "facts" attested by the documents. But he insists,like Nietzsche later, that
the principles of history-writing are precisely the same as those informing the
drama, and tragic drama specifically. See the Asthetik (Frankfurt am Main:
Suhrkamp Verlag, 1970), III, 256-61. The Philosophie der Geschichte, it must
be stressed,is concerned not with history-writing per se but with the problem of
drawing generalizations about the course of world history from the fragmentary
accounts of it provided by historians who have ascended to the fourth level of
historiographicalself-consciousness,Conceptualization (Begriffsgeschichte).Croce's
discussion of historyas an art can be found in Aesthetic: As Science of Expression
and General Linguistic (New York, I968), pp. 26-30.

and scientific insightsare more different than similar,have been con-

cerned to salvage history'sclaim to scientificstatus-and have tended
therefore to play down the importanceof the interpretative elementin
historicalnarratives.They have been inclinedto inquireintotheextent
to which a historicalnarrativecan be consideredas somethingother
than a mere interpretation, on the assumptionthat what is interpreta-
tion is not knowledgebut only opinion and the beliefthat what is not
objectivein a scientific senseis not worthknowing.
In general,contemporary theoristshave resolvedthe problemof his-
tory'sepistemologicalstatusin two ways. One group, taking a posi-
tivisticview of explanation,has argued that historiansexplain past
eventsonly insofaras theysucceed in identifying the laws of causation
governingthe processesin which the events occur. They maintain,
moreover,that historycan claim the status of a science only in the
extentto which historiansactuallysucceed in identifying the laws that
actually determine historical Another
processes."1 group,takinga some-
what more literarytack, has insistedthat historiansexplain the events
thatmake up theirnarrativesby specifically narrativemeans of encoda-
tion, that is to the
say,by finding story which lies buried withinor be-
hind the eventsand tellingit in a way thatan ordinarilyeducated man
would understand. Such an explanation,however,this group insists,
though "literary"in form,is not to be consideredas nonscientific or
antiscientific.A "narrativist"explanationin historyqualifiesas a con-
tributionto our objectiveknowledgeof the world,because it is empiri-
cal in natureand subjectto techniquesof verification and disconfirma-
tion in the same way thattheoriesin science are.12 Both groupsof the-
II The classic defense of the nomological-deductiveconception of historical ex-

planation is by Carl G. Hempel, "Explanation in Science and in History," reprinted
in Dray, Philosophical Analysis and History, pp. 95-126. Hempel's thesis is that
"explanation . .. is basically the same in all areas of scientificinquiry," that insofar
as historian's "explain" and therebyprovide "understanding" of past events, they
must do so by employing the same "deductive and nomological" tactics of the
physical science; but that since they are prohibitedby the nature of the events they
deal with, the best that theycan legitimatelyaspire to, in the way of an explanation
of them, are porous, partial, or sketchypseudoexplanations. See the expositionand
critique of this view by Alan Donagan, "The Popper-Hempel Theory Reconsidered,"
in Dray, Philosophical Analysis and History,pp. 127-59.
I 2 The narrativistview of historical explanation holds that historians provide
understandingof past events and processes by clarifyingthe story-lineof finiteseg-
ments of the historical record. A historicalprocess is, on this view, rather like the
unfoldingof a game of sport,the outcome of which is not predictablein advance of
its resolution but is retrospectivelycomprehensible. A given historical process is
rendered comprehensibleby the historianby the kind of trackingoperation carried
out by sportswriters after a given game has been concluded. By unpacking the ele-
ments of the concluded game, arrangingthem on a time-line,and permittingthem

oristsgrantthat "interpretation" may enterinto the historian'saccount

of the past at some point in the constructionof his narrativeand rec-
ommendthat historianstryto distinguish betweenthoseaspectsof their
accountsthatare empiricallyfoundedand thosebased on interpretative
Theydiffer
strategies. primarilyoverthequestionofthepreciseformal
natureof theexplanatory elementpresent in any responsiblehistorical
narrative.As fortheinterpretative element thatmightappearin a his-
toricalaccountof thepast,theyare inclinedto identify thiswiththe
historian's
effortsto fillin gapsin the recordby speculation, to infer
motivesof historicalagents, and to assessthe impact,influence, or sig-
nificanceof empiricallyestablishedfactswithrespectto othersegments
ofthehistoricalrecord."3
Criticsof historiography as a discipline,however, have takenmore
radicalviewson thematterofinterpretation goingso faras
in history,
to arguethathistorical accountsare nothing butinterpretations, in the
establishmentof theeventsthatmakeup thechronicle of thenarrative
no lessthanin assessments ofthemeaningorsignificance ofthoseevents
forthe understanding of the historicalprocess general.Thus, for
in
example,inThe SavageMind, Claude hassuggested
L&vi-Strauss thatthe
formalcoherency ofanyhistorical narrative consists
solelyofa "fraudu-
lentoutline"imposedby thehistorian upona bodyof materials which
couldbe called "data" onlyin the mostextendedsenseof the term.
Historicalaccountsare inevitably Levi-Strauss
interpretative, argues,
becauseof "a twofoldantinomy in the verynotionof an historical
factis "whatreallytookplace,"he notes;butwhere,
fact." A historical
he asks,did anything takeplace? Anyhistorical episode-in a revolu-
tionor a war,forexample-canbe resolvedintoa "multitude of indi-
vidualpsychic be
moments."Each of thesein turncan translated into
a manifestation of somemorebasic processof "unconscious develop-
ment,and theseresolvethemselves intocerebral,hormonal, or nervous
phenomena,which themselves have referenceto the physicaland
chemicalorder."Thus Levi-Strauss concludes,historicalfactsare in
no sense"given"to thehistorian but are rather"constituted" by the
to unfold gradually beforethe gaze of the reader, the historianrenderstheir articu-
lation "followable after all" in a way that they were not followable during their
original unfolding. For a defense of this view, see W. B. Gallie, Philosophy and
the Historical Understanding (New York, 1968), Ch. ii, and Louis O. Mink, "The
Autonomy of Historical Understanding," in Dray, Philosophical Analysis and His-
tory,pp. I6O-92. The logical structureof historical narratives,based on the model
of what is called "narrativesentences,"is convincinglyanalyzed in ArthurC. Danto's
Analytical Philosophy of History (Cambridge, I965).
13 See Isaiah Berlin, "The Concept of ScientificHistory," in Dray, Philosophical
Analysis and History,pp. 40-51.

historianhimself"by abstractionand as thoughunder the threatof an

infiniteregress."
Moreover,Levi-Straussmaintains,if historicalfactsare "constituted"
ratherthan "given,"so too are they"selected"ratherthan apodictically
providedas elementsof a narrative.Confrontedwitha chaos of "facts,"
the historianmust "choose, sever and carve them up" for narrative
purposes. In short,historicalfacts,originallyconstitutedas "data" by
the historian,mustbe constituteda second timeas elementsof a verbal
structurewhich is always writtenfor a specific (manifestor latent)
purpose. This means that,in his view, "History"is never simplyhis-
tory,but always "history-for," historywrittenin the interestof some
aim or vision.14
infrascientific
In his "Overtureto le Cru et le cuit," Levi-Strausssuggeststhat the
interpretativeaspect of historiography mythicalin nature.
is specifically
Commentingon the plethoraof worksdealingwiththe FrenchRevolu-
tion,he observesthat:
In them,authorsdo not alwaysmake use of the same incidents;when

they do, the incidentsare revealed in quite different
lights. And yet
theseare variationswhichhave to do with the same country,the same
period, and the same events-eventswhose realityis scatteredacross
everylevel of a multilayered
structure.
This suggeststhat the criterionof validityby which historicalaccounts

might be assessed cannot depend upon their "elements,"i.e., their
putative"factual" content.On the contrary,he notes:
Pursuedin isolation,each elementwould showitselfto be beyondgrasp.

But certainof them deriveconsistencyfromthe fact that theycan be
integratedinto a systemwhosetermsare more or less crediblewhen set
offagainsttheoverallcoherenceoftheseries.
The coherenceof the series,however,is the coherenceof myth. As

LUvi-Straussputs it: "In spite of worthyand indispensableeffortsto
bringanothermomentin' historyalive and to possessit, a clairvoyant
historyshould admit that it never completelyescapes fromthe nature
of myth."15
To be sure, in The Savage Mind, LUvi-Straussgrantsthat history
can be distinguishedfrommythby virtue of its dependencyon and
14 Claude ILvi-Strauss, The Savage Mind (London, 1966), p. 257.

15 Claude L6vi-Strauss, "Overture to le Cru et le cuit," in Structuralism,ed.
Jacques Ehrmann (New York, 1966), pp. 47-48.

to those"dates" thatmake up itsspeciousobjectiveframe-

responsibility
work. It is dates,he says,which justifythe historian'ssearch for "tem-
poral relationships"and sanction the conceptualizationof events in
termsof "the relationof beforeand after.. . ." But, he argues,even
this reliance on the chronologicalrecord does not save the historian
frommythicinterpretations of his materials. For in fact not only are
there "hot" and "cold" chronologies(chronologiesin which more or
less numbersof dates appear to demand inclusionin any full account
of "what was happening"), but, more importantly, the "dates" them-
selves come to us already grouped into "classes of dates" which are
constitutiveof the putative"domains of history"that historiansof a
given age must confrontas "problems"to be solved. In short,appeal
to the chronologicalsequence affordsno relieffromthe chargethat the
coherencyof the historicalaccount is mythologicalin nature. For the
chronicleis no less constitutedas a recordof the past by the historian's
own agencythan is the narrativewhich he constructson its basis. And
whenit is a matterof workingup a comprehensive account of the vari-
ous "domains" of the historicalrecord,any "alleged historicalcontin-
uity" thatmightbe builtinto such an account "is securedonlyby dint
of fraudulentoutlines" imposed by the historianhimselfupon the
record.
These "fraudulentoutlines," LUvi-Straussmaintains,make up the
sum total of those putative"explanations"that historiansofferof past
structuresand processes.These explanations,in turn,representproducts
of decisionsto ignorespecific"domains" in the interestof achievinga
purelyformalcoherencyin representation.Which means thathistorical
interpretation appears in that space createdby the tensionbetweenthe
impulse explain on the one side and to' conveyinformationon the
to
other. Or as he puts it:
The historian'srelativechoice,with respectto each domain of history

whichteaches
he givesup, is alwaysconfinedto thechoicebetweenhistory
us more and explainsless,and historywhichexplainsmore and teaches
less.16
Historiansthen must,on LUvi-Strauss'analysis,decide whetherthey

want to explain the past (in which case theyare indenturedto mythic
modes of representation)or simplyadd to the body of "facts" requir-
ing such representation.And this dilemma can be escaped, he main-
tains,only if we recognizethat "historyis a method with no distinct
I6 LUvi-Strauss,Savage Mind, pp. 258-62.

object corresponding to it"; it is a disciplinewithouta particularsubject

uniquelyconsignedto it. Againstthehumanisticbeliefthatman or the
human in general is the peculiar object of historicalreflection,L6vi-
Straussinsiststhat history"is tied neitherto man nor to any particular
object." History,he says,"consistswhollyof its method,which experi-
ence proves to be indispensablefor cataloguingthe elementsof any
structurewhatever,human or non-human,in its entirety."Thus, his-
toryis in no sensea science,althoughas a "method" it does contribute
to the sciencesby virtueof its cataloguingoperations. What the his-
torianoffersas explanationsof structuresand processesin the past, in
the formof narratives,are simplyformalizations of those "fraudulent
outlines"which are ultimately in
mythic nature.17
This conceptionof historiography bears a numberof strikingresem-
blances to those of NorthropFrye and the late R. G. Collingwood.
Both of thesethinkersanalyze the elementof "construct"in historical
representation, the extentto which the historianmust necessarily"in-
terpret" the "data" given him by the historicalrecordin orderto pro-
vide somethinglike an "explanation"of it. In a briefessayon the kind
of "metahistorical"speculationsproducedby Hegel, Marx, and Speng-
ler, Frye remarksthat: "We noticethatwhen a historian'sschemegets
to a certainpoint of comprehensiveness it becomesmythicalin shape,
and so approachesthe poeticin its structure."And he goes on to speak
of "romantichistoricalmythsbased on a quest or pilgrimageto a City
of God or a classlesssociety; . . . comic historicalmythsof progress
throughevolutionor revolution;[and] . . tragicmythsof declineand
fall,recurrenceor casual catastrophe."18
But, Frye insists,the historiandoes not (or at least should not) im-
pose a patternupon his data; he mustproceed "inductively,collecting
his factsand tryingto avoid any informingpatternsexcept those that
he sees, or is honestlyconvincedhe sees, in the factsthemselves."Un-
like the poet who, in Frye'sview, works"deductively,"froman appre-
hensionof the patternthat he intendsto impose upon his subject,the
historianworkstowardthe unifyingformof his narrative,afterhe has
finishedhis "research." But the differencebetweena historicaland a
fictionalaccount of the world is formal,not substantive;it residesin
the relativeweightsgiven to the constructiveelementsin them: "the
informingpatternof the historian'sbook, which is his mythosor plot,
is secondary,just as detail to a poetis secondary."19
17 Ibid., p. 262.
I8 Frye, "New Directions from Old," pp. 53-54-
19 Ibid., pp. 54-55.

Thus, althoughFryewantsto insiston importantdifferences between

poetryand history,he is sensitiveto the extentto which theyresemble
one another. And althoughhe wants to believe that "properhistory"
can be distinguishedfrom "metahistory,"on his own analysisof the
structuresof prose fictions,he must be preparedto grantthat thereis
a mythicelement in "proper history"by which the structuresand
processesdepicted in its narrativesare endowed with meaningsof a
specificallyfictivekind. A historicalinterpretation, like a poetic fic-
tion,can be said to appeal to its readersas a plausiblerepresentationof
the world by virtue of its implicitappeal to those "pre-genericplot-
structures"or archetypalstory-forms that definethe modalitiesof a
given culture's literary endowment.20 Historians,no lessthan poets,can
be said to gain an "explanatoryaffect"--overand above whatever
formal explanationsthey may offerof specifichistoricalevents-by
buildinginto theirnarrativespatternsof meaningsimilarto thosemore
explicitlyprovidedby the literaryart of the culturesto which theybe-
long. This mythicelementiri theirwork is recognizablein those his-
toricalaccounts,such as Gibbon's Decline and Fall, which continueto
be honored as classicslong afterthe "facts" containedin them have
been refinedbeyondrecognition by subsequentresearchand theirformal
explanatoryargumentshave been transcendedby the advent of new
sociologicaland psychologicaltheories.
By an extensionof Frye's ideas, it can be argued that interpretation
in historyconsistsof the provisionsof a plot-structure for a sequence
of eventsso thattheirnatureas a comprehensible processis revealedby
theirfiguration as a storyof a particularkind. What one historianmay
emplotas a tragedy,anothermay emplotas a comedyor romance. As
thus envisaged,the "story"which the historianpurportsto "find" in
the historicalrecordis prolepticto the "plot" by which the eventsare
finallyrevealed to figurea recognizablestructureof relationshipsof a
specificallymythicsort. In historicalnarrative,storyis to plot as the
expositionof "what happened" in the past is to the synopticcharacteri-
zation of what the whole sequence of eventscontainedin the narrative
might"mean" or "signify."21Or to use Frye's terms,in historyas in
20 Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (Princeton, 1957), PP-

162 ff.
21 See Mink, "The Autonomy of Historical Understanding," pp. 179-86, and
Walsh, Philosophyof History,p. 33. I use the term "plot" in much the same sense
that Mink uses the notionof the "syntax" of events,which the historianseeks within
or behind the welter of facts confrontinghim in the narrative. Walsh distinguishes
between a "mere" chronicle and the "smooth narrative" constructed by the his-
torian from the events contained in the chronicle. In the "smooth narrative," he
says, "every event falls as it were into its natural place and belongs to an intelligible

fiction,"while we read, we are aware of a sequence of metaphorical

identifications;when we have finished,we are aware of an organizing
structuralpatternor conceptualizedmyth."2 And if thisis true,then
it followsthat there are at least two levels of interpretation in every
historicalwork: one in which the historianconstitutesa storyout of
the chronicleof eventsand anotherin which,by a more fundamental
narrativetechnique,he progressively identifiesthe kind of storyhe is
telling,comedy,tragedy,romance,epic, or satire,as the case mightbe.
It would be on the second level of interpretation that the mythiccon-
sciousnesswould operatemostclearly.
But on Frye'sview,it would not operatecapriciously, as Levi-Strauss
appears to suggest. It operatesratheraccordingto well-known,if fre-
quentlyviolated,literaryconventions,conventionswhich the historian,
likethe poet,beginsto assimilatefromthe firstmomenthe is told a story
as a child. There are, then,"rules" if not "laws" of historicalnarration.
Michelet,for example, is not only a "romanticist"historian,he con-
sistentlyemplotshis historyof France up to the Revolutionof 1789 as
a "romance." And Tocqueville's putative "realism," so often con-
trastedwith Michelet'spurported"romanticism,"consistsin large part
of his decisionto emplotthatsame historyin the mode of tragedy.The
conflictbetween these two interpretations of French historydoes not
occur on the level of the "facts" which make up the chronicleof the
processunder analysis,but ratheron the level on whichthe storyto be
told about the factsis constitutedas a storyof a particularkind.
Here mythsfunctionin the way suggestedby WarnerBerthoff:not
to explainwhat to thinkabout eventsand objectsin theperceptualfield,
but withwhat degreeof forceto think-and how preciselyto situatethe

of the thinkable. . . to attributeto the speciesof fact in
constituents
questionthe elementor qualityof the causative,or of causativeness, i.e.,
genericorigination,. . . and to define,by selection-and-arrangement of
appropriateterms that constitutes
theirform, that speciesor class of im-
portancepeculiarto the occasiontheyembrace.....
The mythicelementin historicalnarration,in short,indicates,"for-
whole. In this respect, the ideal of the historian is in principle identical with that
of the novelist or the dramatist." On the distinctionbetween story and plot, see
Boris Tomashevsky,"Thematics," pp. 66-75, and Boris Eichenbaum, "The Theory
of the 'Formal Method,' " pp. I15-21, both in Russian Formalist Criticism: Four
Essays, tr. Lee T. Lemon and Marion J. Reis (Lincoln, 1965).
22 Frye, Anatomy,pp. 352-53.

mally,the appropriate gravityand respect"to be accordedby the

readertothespeciesoffactsreported in thenarrative.23
The distinction to
beingappealed here-betweenstoryand plotin
historical
narration-issimilarto thatadvancedby Collingwood in his
analysisof historicalinterpretation in his The Idea of History. his
In
discussionoftheextentto whichhistorians legitimately go beyondwhat
their"authorities" tell themhad happenedin the past,Collingwood
postulateda twofoldinterpretative strategy:criticaland constructive.
In thecriticalphaseof theirwork,Collingwood maintained, historians
werepermitted to drawupon thescientific loreof theirown timein
orderto justifyrejection ofcertainkindsoffacts,however wellattested
by the documentary record-as when,forexample,theyrejectamply
attestedreportsof miracles.By criticism of the documents, the his-
torianestablishesthe"framework" ofhisnarrative, thesetoffactsout
ofwhicha "story"is to be fashioned in hisnarrative accountof them.
His problem, once thisframework is established, is to fillin thegapsin
the recordby a deductionof factsthat"musthave occurred"from
knowledge of thosewhichare knownactuallyto have occurred.Thus,
forexample,if one knowsthatCaesarwas in Gaul at one timeand in
Rome at anothertime,one can legitimately inferthathe musthave
passed between these two places during the intervalbetweenthem.
And thedrawingofsuchinferences was an example,he argued,ofthe
operationof that"constructive imagination" without whichno histori-
cal narrativecouldbe produced.24
But the constructive imagination is not, in Collingwood'sview,
limitedto theinference of purelyphysicalrelationships and processes.
The constructive imagination directs the historian's attention to the
form that a given setof events must have in order to serve as a possible
"objectofthought."To be sure,in hisaccountof thematter, Colling-
woodtendedto concludethatthepossibleobjectofthought in question
was the"story"of whatactuallyhappenedin a giventimeand place
in thepast. At thesametime,however, he insisted thattheconstruc-
tiveimagination was botha priori(whichmeantthatit did not act
capriciously)and structural (whichmeantthatit was governedby
notionsof formalcoherency in its constitution of possibleobjectsof
thought).Whatwas "found"in thehistorical recordby thehistorian
had to be augmented byprojection ontothehistorical recordof those
23 Warner Berthoff,"Fiction, History,Myth: Notes Towards the Discrimination

of Narrative Forms," in The Interpretationof Narrative: Theory and Practice, ed.
Morton W. Bloomfield (Cambridge, 1970), pp. 277-78.
24 R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of History (Oxford, 1946), pp. 239-41.

notionsof possiblestructures of human beingand comportment existing

in the historian'sconsciousnesseven before the investigationof the
recordbegan.25
But surelythe historiandoes not bring with him a notion of the
"story"thatlies embeddedwithinthe "facts" givenby the record. For
in factthereare an infinitenumberof such storiescontainedtherein,all
different in theirdetails,each unlikeeveryother. What the historian
mustbringto his considerationof the recordare generalnotionsof the
kindsof storiesthatmightbe foundthere,just as he mustbringto con-
siderationof theproblemof narrativerepresentation some notionof the
"pre-genericplot-structure" by which the storyhe tells is endowed
with formalcoherency.In otherwords,the historianmust draw upon
a fund of culturallyprovided"mythoi"in orderto constitutethe facts
as figuringa storyof a particularkind, just as he must appeal to that
same fund of "mythoi"in the minds of his readersto endow his ac-
count of the past withthe odor of meaningor significance.If, as Levi-
Strausscorrectlyobserves,one can tell a host of different storiesabout
the singleset of eventsconventionally designatedas "the French Revo-
lution," this does not mean: that the typesof storiesthat can be told
about the set are infinitein number. The typesof storiesthat can be
told about the French Revolutionare limitedto the numberof modes
of emplotmentwhich the mythsof the Westernliterarytraditionsanc-
tion as appropriateways of endowinghuman processeswithmeanings.
The distinctionbetween"story"and "plot" in historicalnarrative
permitsus furtherto specifywhat is involvedin a "narrativeexplana-
tion." In fact,by a specificarrangementof the eventsreportedin the
documents,and withoutoffenseto the truthvalue of the factsselected,
a given sequence of eventscan be emplottedin a numberof different
ways. For example,the eventswhich occurredin France in 1789-90,
whichBurkeviewed as an unalloyednationaldisaster,Micheletregards
as an epiphanyof that union of man with God informingthe dream
of the romanceas a genericstory-form. Similarly,what Michelet takes
as an unambiguouslegacy of those eventsfor his own time, Tocque-
ville interprets as both a burden and an opportunity.Tocqueville em-
plots the fall of the Old Regimeas a tragicdescent,but one fromwhich
the survivorsof the agon can profit,while Burke views that same des-
cent as a processof degradationfromwhich little,if any, profitcan be
derived. Marx, on the otherhand, explicitlycharacterizesthe fall of
the Old Regime as a "tragedy"in orderto contrastit withthe "comic"
efforts to maintainfeudalismby artificialmeans in the Germanyof his
25 Ibid., pp. 241-45-

own time. In short,the historiansmentionedeach tell a differentstory

about the French Revolution and "explain" it thereby. It is as if
Homer, Sophocles,Aristophanes, and Menander had all takenthesame
set of eventsand made out of themthe kind of storythat each preferred
as the image of the way that human life, in its historicity,"really
was." 26
Now, to raisethe questionof the distinction
betweenstoriesand plot-
structuresis to verge upon a problemwhich literarycriticshostileto
NorthropFrye'stheoryof fictionsare likelyto findunpalatable. I there-
forehastento statethatI am not invokingthe distinction betweenstory
and plot-structurein orderto defendFrye'sspecifictheoryof fictions,
in
which pre-genericplot-structures are interpretedas the "displaced"
formsof the "mythoi"that supposedlygive to different poetic fictions
one among othersof theirspecificemotiveaffects.I invokethe distinc-
tionin orderto suggestitsutilityas a way of identifying
the specifically
"fictive"elementin historicalaccountsof the world. This requiresthat
I reject Frye's distinctionbetween (undisplaced) myths,fiction,and
such formsof directprosediscourseas historiography,and to assertthat
the similaritiesbetweenthesethreeformsare just as importantforthe
understandingof historicalinterpretationas any differencesamong
26 In his Reflections on the Revolution in France (New York, I961), Burke

characterizes the Revolution as a "strange chaos of levity and ferocity"in which
"all sorts of crimes" are "jumbled togetherwith all sorts of follies." He calls it a
"monstroustragi-comicscene" and contrastsit with the English Revolution of 1688
in which the true principles of the national life were at last made manifest. See
Reflections,pp. 21-22, 29-37. Michelet, by contrast,speaks of the events of 1789-9o
as a time of perfectunity of people, country,nature, and God: "Fraternityhas re-
moved every obstacle, all the federations are about to confederate together, and
union tends to unity.-No more federations! They are useless, only one now is
necessary,-France; and it appears transfiguredin the gloryof July. . . . There is
nothing but what breathes the pure love of unity." Jules Michelet, History of the
French Revolution, tr. Charles Cocks (Chicago, 1967), pp. 442-44. For Tocque-
ville's conception of the Revolution, see the famous Chapter iii of Part I of The
Old Regime and the French Revolution, tr. Stuart Gilbert (New York, 1955),
pp. I -13, and Chapter v of the same Part I, "What did the French Revolution
accomplish?," pp. 19-21. Ranke, with typically "comic" confidence in the power
of historyto effectby evil means a generally salubrious political order, views his
own age of the Restoration as a perfectly"reconciled" condition. In his Politische
Gespriiche,he characterizesthe systemof nation-statesthat has taken shape in the
wake of the Revolutionary epoch in the following terms: "These many separate,
earthly-spiritualcommunities called forth by moral energy, growing irresistably,
progressingamidst all the turmoil of the world towards the ideal, each in its own
way! Behold them, these celestial bodies, in their cycles, their mutual gravitation,
their systems!" Theodore von Laue, Leopold von Ranke: The Formative Years
(Princeton, 1950), p. I8o. For Marx's contrastbetween the historyof France and
that of Germany in terms of the "tragic" nature of the formerand the "comic"
nature of the latter,see his Critique of Hegel's Philosophyof Right.

296 NEWLITERARY
HISTORY
themthatwe mightbe able to accept as validlyspecified.For, if Col-

lingwoodis rightin' his analysisof the workingsof the "constructive
imagination" in the compositionof historicalnarratives,then it is
possible to conclude that the "constructive"element which he dis-
cerned in everysuch narrativeis containedpreciselyin the historians
choice of a "pre-genericplot-structure" or "myth"by which to identify
the "story"he has told as a "storyof a particularkind,"epic, romance,
comedy,tragedy,or satire,as the case may be. And I shall suggestthat
one elementin the historian's"interpretation" of the eventsdepictedin
the "story"he tells,as a way of "explaining"what happenedin the past,
lies in his choice of the "pre-genericplot-structure"
by which to trans-
forma chronicleof eventsintoa "history"comprehendedby its readers
as a "storyof a particularkind."
To be sure,by thisextensionof Frye'sargumentsregardingthe struc-
ture of poetic fictions,the distinctionbetween "proper history"and
"metahistory"tends to dissolveinto a matterof emphasis. Historical
narrativesof the sortproduced by Michelet, Ranke, Tocqueville, and
Burckhardtmust be conceived to have the same formalattributesas
those "philosophiesof history"constructedby Hegel, Marx, Spengler,
27 Frye touches on this point in his essay "New Directions from Old," when he
suggests that "there is somethingof the same kind of affinitybetween poetry and
metaphysicsthat there is between,poetry and metahistory" (p. 56). But the pre-
supposition underlyingthe theoryof fictionsset forthin the Anatomy of Criticism
is that undisplaced mythicvisions of the world are opposed to the world-viewin-
forming "realistic" discursive prose structures, descriptive and assertive, with
"fictions"occupying a middle ground between them. This dichotomizationwould be
legitimate enough if the poles of the spectrumwere representedby mythicvisions
on the one side and scientificconceptualizationsof realityon the other. But asser-
tive prose representationsof the world such as historycannot be assimilated to the
category of the scientificunambiguously. It is only superficiallytrue that history
directs attention to the content of the narrative (the "facts") rather than to the
form of the narrativein which they are embedded. Like the realistic novel, a his-
tory is on one level an allegory. The degree of displacement of the informing
(mythic) plot-structuremay be greaterin historythan in poetry,but the differences
between a historyand a fictional account of reality are matters of degree rather
than of kind. Of the formal elements of historical narratives,we can say what
Frye says of fictionsin general. That is, "form" can be conceived as a "shaping"
or as a "containing" principle. As "shaping," it can be thoughtof as a narrative;
as "containing," it can be thoughtof as providing "meaning" (p. 83). And so too
we can distinguishbetween two kinds of meaning provided by the historicalnarra-
tive; a historycontains both "hypothetical" and "assertive" elements in the same
way that "realistic" novels do (p. 80). A historymay presentitselfas a "mimesis
praxeos," while myths may be "secondary imitations" of actions, i.e., of typical
actions, which may indeed make them more philosophical than history (p. 83).
But historians could not compose their narratives without invoking, at least im-
plicitly,the formalstructuresof mythfor the "shaping" and "containing" effectsof
their representationsof reality.

and Toynbee. This is not to suggestthat we cannot findobvious dif-

ferencesbetween a historicalaccount that purportssimplyto tell a
storyand those that come attendedby complex theoriesof historical
causation and formallyarticulatedsystemsof ideological implication.
But it is to suggestthat the differenceconventionally invoked,between
a historicalaccount that "explains" by story-tellingon the one side and
that which conceptuallyoverdetermines its data in the interestof im-
posinga specificshape on the historicalprocess,obscuresas much as it
illuminatesabout the nature of "interpretation" in historicalwriting.
One can argue, in fact,that just as therecan be no explanationin
historywithouta story,so too therecan be no storywithouta plot by
which to make of it a storyof a particularkind. This is true even of
the most self-consciously impressionistic historicalaccount, such as
Burckhardt'sloosely organized picture of the culture of the Italian
Renaissance. One of Burckhardt'sexplicitlystated purposes was to
write historyin such a way as to frustrateconventionalexpectations
regardingthe formalcoherencyof the historicalfield. He was seeking,
in short,the same kind of effectas thatsoughtby the writerof a satire.
And indeed Burckhardtemplotshis storyof the Renaissance in the
mode of the satura,or medley,which givesto his pictureof that period
of historyits notoriouslyelusive quality as an "interpretation."Late
admirersof Burckhardthave praised him for his resoluteresistenceto
any impulseto "overconceptualize"his picturesof the past or to over-
emplotthe storieshe tellsabout it. They have not recognizedthatsuch
sternrefusalto imposea formon the historicalrecordis itselfa poetic
decision,the kind of decisionunderlyingthe satiricfiction,a decision
which Burckhardtjustifiedin his own mind by appeal to the historical
solipsismof his philosophicalmasterSchopenhauer. Burckhardtis not
less "metahistorical"than Hegel; it is just that his brand of "metahis-
tory"has not been recognizedforthe poetic fictionthat it represents in
the way thatHegel's has been.28
28 LiSwith (Meaning in History,p. 26) views Burckhardtas the firstmodern his-

torian of undeniably classic stature to write historywithout concessions to those
myths which had captivated all of the great "metahistorians"before him. But it
would have been more accurate to have seen him as a classic historical skeptic.
Burckhardt's point of view is consistentlyironic, his narrative techniques that of
the satire. He calls his Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy an "essay" and ex-
plicitly foregoes any effortto claim for it the status of an objective or scientific
account of the period dealt with. So too Burckhardt abandons any effortto con-
struct a diachronic narrative of events, structures,and processes that make up his
account of the Renaissance. Materials are grouped together under very general
categories or in terms of themes, but there is no effortto develop either an argu-
ment or a "story" in the individual sections of the book, and each section ends
with a passage which seems to signal the author's intentionto frustratethe reader's

The provisionof a plot-structure, in order to endow the narrative

account of "what happened in the past" with the attributesof a com-
prehensibleprocess of developmentresemblingthe articulationof a
drama or a novel,is one elementin the historian's"interpretation" of
the past. We may now consideranotheraspectof the historian'sinter-
pretativeoperations,that contained in the formal argumentthat he
mightoffer(or that can be extrapolatedfromhis parabaseson the se-
quence of eventsrepresentedin the narrative) to "explain" in nomo-
logical-deductiveterms"why" the eventsdeveloped as theyappear to
have done as givenin the narrativeaccount. It is oftensuggestedthat
all such nomological-deductive argumentsofferedby the historianare
eitherincomplete,flawed,or merelycommonsensical, as comparedwith
the paradigmsof such explanationsprovided by true sciencessuch as
physicsand chemistry.And for our purposes,the general agreement
betweenIdealistsand Positivists over the generallyunsatisfactory nature
of all putativecausal explanationsofferedby historiansof human and
social events,theircommonacceptanceof theirsemi-or pseudoscienti-
fic character,is convenient. For it permitsus to proceed immediately
to the considerationof the "interpretative" elementin all such putative
'"explanations."
Like practitionersof all fieldsnot fullyscientized,historiansbringto
theirefforts to explain the past different paradigmsof the formthat a
valid "explanation" may take. By a paradigm I mean the model of
what a set of historicaleventswill look like once theyhave been ex-
plained. One purpose of an explanationis to put in the place of a
vague or impreciseperceptionof the relationshipsobtaining among
phenomenain a given fielda clear or preciseperception.But the no-
tionof what a clear and preciseperceptionof a givendomain of histori-
cal happeningmightlook like differsfromhistorianto historian. For
some historiansan explicatedhistoricaldomain presentsthe aspect of
a set of dispersedentities,each of which is clearly discernibleas a
unique particularity and the shared attributeof all being nothingother
than their inhabitance of a single neighborhoodof occurrences. In
otherwords,explanationin thissenserepresents the resultof an analyti-
cal operationwhich leaves the various entitiesof the field unreduced
eitherto the statusof generalcausal laws or to thatof instancesof gen-
eral classificatory
categories. For historiansgovernedby this concep-
attempts to constituteit retrospectivelyin any cognitivelysignificantterms. It is

literally a satura, a medley or "stew," the aim of which can be construed as
similar to that of the modern antinovel,that is to say to challenge the conventional
"story" expectations that one normallybrings to the consideration of a history.

tion of what an explanationshould consistof, a fieldwhich appears at

firstglance to be a vague congeriesof eventsis revealed at the end of
the analysisto consistof a set of essentiallyautonomousparticularssub-
sumable under no general rule, eitherof causation or of classificatory
entailment.
For other historians,however,a fullyexplicatedhistoricaldomain
will appear as a fieldof integratedentitiesgovernedby a clearlyspeci-
fiablestructureof relationships, or syntax. Althoughappearingat first
glance to be unrelatedto one another,the individual entitiesin the
fieldare revealedat the end of the analysisto be relatedto one another
in the modalityof cause-effectrelationships(i.e., mechanistically)or
in thatof part-wholerelationships(i.e., organicistically).For thiskind
of historian,"explanation" strivesnot for dispersion,but for integra-
tion,not foranalysis,but for synthesis."9
In otherwords,we can distinguishamong the various formsof ex-
planationin historiography in two ways: on the basis of the direction
that the analyticaloperationis presumedto take (towards dispersion
or integration)and on the basis of the paradigmof the generalaspect
that the explicatedset of phenomena will assume at the end of this
operation. The differenceis ratherlike that betweenthosestudentsof
language interestedprimarilyin assemblinga lexicon and those con-
cerned to determinethe grammarand syntaxof a specificsystemof
usage.
Some historiansdelightin takinga fieldof historicalhappeningthat
appears vague or obscure and simplysortingout the various entities
withinit so that theiroutlinesseem more precise. They servethe func-
tion of magnifying glasses for their readers; when they have finished
with their work, the particularsin the field appear clearer to the
(mind's) eye. And thisis theirexplanationof what was happeningin
the field. This desireto renderthe objects of perceptionclearerto the
(mind's) eye is what appears to underliethe effortat palingenesisin-
spiringmuch of Romantic historiography, and defendedexplicitlyas a
29 The distinction drawn here, between dispersive and integrative strategies of

explanation, is taken from Stephen C. Pepper, World Hypotheses (Berkeley and
i a sadly neglected analysisof the modalities of philo-
Los Angeles, 1966), pp. 142 ff,
sophical discourse. Pepper argues that there are basically only four "cognitively
responsible" world hypotheses,each of which bringswith it to philosophical debate
its own theory of truth and conception of the tactics by which truth-statements
can be adequately verified. He calls these four world hypothesesformism,organi-
cism, mechanism, and contextualism. I have substitutedthe term "idiography" for
his "formism,"since it seemed more self-explanatoryof its content for a discussion
of the historiographicalequivalents of Pepper's world hypotheses.

"scientific"method by Niebuhr, Michelet, and Carlyle.3?The philo-

sophical defenseof thismethodwas providedby WilhelmWindelband,
who called it "idiography."31 As a "scientific"method, of course,
idiographyprovidesthe kindsof explanationsmet within biologybefore
Linnaeus or in chemistry beforeLavoisier. The productsof this kind
of historiography have much the same aspect as the notescollectedby
a naturalistor by an anthropologistworkingin the field. Though with
this difference:whereasboth the naturalistand the anthropologist re-
gard theirobservationsas data to be workedup subsequentlyinto gen-
eralizationsabout the structureof the fieldas a whole, the idiographic
historianconceivesof his workas finishedwhen the phenomenahe has
observedhave adequatelybeen representedin precisedescriptiveprose.
To be sure,some idiographichistoriansinsistthat observationof the
data must be followedby the effortto generalizeabout them,so as to
offerthe reader some insightinto the possible"meaning" or "signifi-
cance" of the data observed. These generalizationsare not conceived,
however,to functionas hypothesesultimatelycapable of being trans-
formedinto general theoriesof historicalcausation or even as a basis
for a general schema of classificationthat might be applied to phe-
nomenain otherprovincesofthehistoricalfield.The generalizations pro-
vided functionratheras idiographiccharacterizations of discrete"con-
texts" for the individual events discernedin the specificfield under
study. This procedure yields those characterizationsof "periods,"
"trends,""eras," "movements,"and the like which permitus to con-
ceive the whole historicalprocessas a successionof discretestructures
and processes,each with its own unique attributes,the significanceof
each of which is believedto residein the "quality" or "atmosphere"of
its richlyvaried texture.32When an "event" is set withinits "context"
by the methodthat Walsh has called "colligation,"the historian'sex-
30 B. G. Niebuhr, the great Romantic historianof Rome, was among the firstto
conceive of historyas palingenesis,especially of the folk spiritwhich was supposed
to reside behind the documentaryaccount. Michelet, in a famous comment on the
differencesbetween his work and that of Thierry and Guizot, explicitlycalls his
task as a historian that of "resurrection"of the dead voices of the lost generations
-and especially of those who have been lost to "history" conceived as the story
of the great men or aristocraciesof the past. The most eloquent defense of this no-
tion of historiography,conceived as a combinationof poetryand science, is Thomas
Carlyle's essay "On History." See A Carlyle Reader, ed. G. B. Tennyson (New
York, 1969), pp. 57-60.
31 Wilhelm Windelband, "Geschichte und Naturswissenschaft,"Prliludien (Frei-
burg im Breisgau and Tiibingen, 1884), II, 142-45.
32 Pepper, World Hypotheses,Ch. x.

planatorytaskis said, on thisanalysis,to be complete.33The movement

towardsintegrationof the phenomenais supposedto stop at the point
at which a given context can be characterizedin modestlygeneral
terms.The entitiesinhabitingthe fieldunder analysisstill remain dis-
persed,but theyare now provisionallyintegratedwith one anotheras
occupantsof a shared "context"or, as it is sometimessaid, are identified
as objectsbathedin a common"atmosphere."This notionof explanation
underliesthe claimsmade forhistoryas a kindof scienceby proponents
of what Auerbach calls "atmospherichistoricism." 34 The explanation
is completewhen the "atmosphere"has been evoked in a successful
proserepresentation.We may-followingPepper--call thisexplanatory
strategy"contextualism."
It can be seen that both of these kinds of historicalexplanation,
idiographyand contextualism,will tend to conceive the explanation
givenby the historianto be virtuallyindistinguishable fromthe "story"
told in the courseof the narration.Althoughcontextualismis modestly
integrative in its generalaim, it does not encourageeitheran organicist
synthesisof the whole field,in the mannerof Hegel, or a mechanistic
reductionof the fieldin termsof universalcausal laws that might"ex-
plain" whythe fieldhas the peculiarcharacteristics thatmake it identi-
fiableas a "context"of a particularsort,in the mannerof Marx. Thus,
for example,Burckhardtwill continuallysuggestthroughouthis book
on Renaissance culturethat the entitiesobservedby him are bathed in
a commonlightand share the same context,which make themidenti-
fiableas specificallypostmedievaland premodernphenomena. But he
refusesto speculateon the "causes" of theirbeing what they are and
condemnsthe efforts of both Positivistand Idealist historiansto further
specify the reasons fortheirbeing what theyare, wheretheyare, when
theyare.35
33 By "colligation" Walsh intends that operation of "binding together"by which
historians correlate events in order to provide understandings of their occur-
rence. This operation includes a determinationof the ends or purposes of historical
agents, identificationof the "appropriate conceptions" or "ideas" that the events
embody, and utilization of some "quasi-scientific"generalizationsderived from ex-
perience and common sense. See Introduction to the Philosophy of History, pp.
60-65. Cf. Mink, "Autonomy of Historical Understanding," pp. I71-72, for a
critique of this idea.
34 Cf. Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representationof Reality in WesternLitera-
ture, tr. Willard Trask (Princeton, 1968), pp. 473-77.
35 See, for example, the section on "Societies and Festivals" in Civilization of the
Renaissance in Italy, tr. S. G. C. Middlemore (London, Ig60), and Burckhardt'sre-
markson the causes of the "great innovation"which occurred during the Renaissance
in Judgmentson History and Historians, tr. Harry Zohn (Boston, 1958), pp. 64-
66. Here Burckhardt'sconception of historical change as "metastasis" is explicitly
set forth.

Needless to say, for historianswith a mechanisticor organicistcon-

ception of the formthat the explicatedhistoricalfieldmust take, the
productsof bothidiographicand contextualist efforts
to "explain" what
happened in the past are utterlyunsatisfactory. The organicistinsists
on the necessity of relatingthe various"contexts"thatcan be perceived
to existin the historicalrecordas partsto the whole which is history-
in-general. He strivesto identifythe "principles"by which the differ-
ent periods of historycan be integratedinto a single macrocosmic
processof development.And this means that explanation,for him,
must take the formof a synthesisin which each of the parts of the
whole must be shown eitherto mirrorthe structureof the totalityor
to prefigure the formof eitherthe end of the whole processor at least
thelatestphase of theprocess.Hegel, forexample,explicitly prohibitsthe
historianfromspeculatingon the future.Historicalwisdom,he says,can
extendonly to the comprehensionof the historian'sown present. But
he conceives this specious presentas the culminationof a millenial
sequence of phases in a processthat is to be regarded as universally
human.36
Marx, by contrast,purportsto be able to predictthe specificformof
the next phase of the whole processby a similarlyorganicistintegra-
tion of all of the significantdata of social history. But he claims to
justifythis predictiveoperationby virtueof the mechanisticreduction
of those data to the statusof functionsof general laws of cause and
effectthat are universallyoperativethroughoutall of history.And it
is the search forsuch laws, by which the eventsin the historicalfield
can be reduced to the status of manifestations of impersonalcausal
agencies, that characterizes the analyticalstrategyof the mechanistic
theory of historicalexplanation general.37The mechanist,in short,
in
does not see the elementsof the historicalfieldas beingrelatedin terms
of part-wholerelationships, but ratherin termsof part-partrelationships
and in the modality of causality. This means, however, that the
mechanistmust distinguishamong the partsso as to identifythosethat
are "causes" and those that are "effects." For the mechanist,then,
the historicalfieldis consideredto have been "explained" when he has
satisfactorilydistinguishedbetween causal agencies and the effectsof
these agencies' operations,and then provided the necessaryand suffi-
cient conditionsfor theirspecificconfigurations at specifictimes and
places withinthe whole process.
Thus, we can say that four differentconceptionsof "explanation"
36 See Pepper's discussionof Hegel's "organicism" in World Hypotheses,pp. 293 ff.

37 Ibid., Ch. ix.

can be found in historiography, the idiographic,the contextualist, the

organicist, and the mechanist, and that in a given historicalwork the
mode of explanationactuallyfavored by a specifichistorianought to
be identifiableand distinguishable fromthe narrativemode (or plot-
structure)by appeal to which he has justifiedhis tellingof a story
of a particularkind. But we can note a certainelectiveaffinity between
the mode of explanationand the mode of emplotmentin historiansof
undeniablyclassic stature. For example, in Michelet the idiographic
formof explanationis coupled with the plot-structure of the Romance;
in Ranke the organicistexplanationis coupled with the Comic plot-
structure;in Tocqueville the mechanisticmode of explanationis used
to complementand illuminatean essentiallyTragic conceptionof the
historicalprocess;and in Burckhardta contextualistexplanatorymode
appearsin conjunctionwitha narrativeformthatis essentiallysatirical.
To be sure, thesedesignationsof modes of explanationand modes of
emplotmentare not exhaustiveof the specifictacticsused by thesehis-
toriansto gain certainkindsof restricted explanatoryeffectsduringthe
course of theirexpositions.Moreover, we need not suppose that the
mode of emplotmentfavored by each historiandictatesthe mode of
explanationthat he will tend to favor. But, as I have suggested,there
does appear to be an electiveaffinity betweenthe modes of explanation
and modes of emplotmentused by each of them to gain a particular
kind of "explanatoryaffect"or "interpretation" of the historicalfield
under study. If, for example, as Frye suggests,we can take as one
attributeof Tragedythe "epiphanyof law" which is supposedto result
fromthe kindsof resolutionsthatit deals in, thenit is obviousthat his-
torianssuch as Tocqueville who prefigure the historicalprocessin tragic
termswill be inclinedto conceiveof the explanationstheymustofferof
it in nomological(and usuallymechanistic)terms. If Comedyis quin-
tessentiallythe "drama of reconciliation,"thenhistorianssuch as Ranke
who approach historyin these termswill be inclined to employ an
organicistconceptionof truthin the formalargumentsin which they
explainwhy thingshappened as theydid in the past. So too Michelet,
writingin the mode of the Romance, favorsidiographicexplanatory
strategies,while Burckhardt,writingin the mode of satire,utilizes a
contextualistexplanatorystrategyto give to the historicalfieldits expli-
cated form.38
Let it be stressedagain, that we are speakinghere of the level on
which the historianis seekingto grasp the natureof the whole fieldof
38 The characterizationsof the plot-structuresgiven here are taken from Frye,
Anatomy, pp. 158-238, though they should be taken as little more than labels of
the complex characterizationsof them offeredby him.

phenomenathat is presentedin his narrative,not that level on which

he searchesfor the necessaryconditionsof a given event'soccurrence
withinthe field. A historianmay decide that a decisionto go to war
was a resultof policy choices of a given individual or group; and he
can be said to have explained therebywhy the war broke out at one
timeratherthan another. But such "explanations"as thesehave to do
with the constitution of the chronicleof eventsthatstillrequire"inter-
pretation" in order to be transformed into a comprehensible drama of
developmentby its emplotment as a particularstory-form. And such
explanations are to be distinguishedfrom the of
generaltheory signifi-
cant relationshipsby which a fieldthus emplottedis providedwith an
"explanation"of whyit has the formthatit has in the narrative.
Thus far I have suggestedthat historiansinterprettheirmaterialsin
two ways: by the choice of a plot-structure, which gives to theirnar-
rativesa recognizableform,and by the choice of a paradigm of ex-
planation,which gives to theirargumentsa specificshape, thrust,and
mode of articulation. It is sometimessuggestedthat both of these
choices are productsof a third,more basic, interpretative decision:
a moral or ideologicaldecision. It is conventional,in fact,to use ide-
ological designationsof different"schools" of historicalinterpretation
("liberal" and "conservative"or "Whig" and "Tory") and to speak,
for example,of a Marxist "approach" to historywhen one intendsto
cast doubt on a radical historian's"explanations"by relegatingthemto
the statusof mere "interpretations."Thus, hostilecriticsof a worklike
Marx's EighteenthBrumaireof Louis Buonapartecan citeitsmanifestly
polemical tone as evidence of its ideological purpose,and the radical
ideologyinformingit can be cited as the reason for the satiricalform
taken by the narrativeand the mechanisticallyreductivenature of its
explanationsof the eventsanalyzed in it. Yet it is obvious that if we
view Marx's great essay as what it is, namely,a masterfulinterpreta-
tion of a complexhistoricalsituation,it is difficult to assignpriorityto
one or anotherof the threeelements in it: the plot-structure of the
farce,the mechanisticstrategyof explanation, or the radical ideology
by appeal to which the moral and politicalimplicationsof the analysis
are drawnforhis readers.39
39 Marx himself of course refers to the events leading up to Louis Napoleon's

coup as a "farce" and contrastsit to the "tragedy" of the Revolution of I789. The
tone is ironic throughout,but the point of view is anythingbut that. On the con-
trary,Marx has by this point in his career fullyworked out the explanatorytheories
by which to disclose the true structureof the events under consideration.They are
given their meaning by being set within the larger frameworkof the whole history
of the bourgeoisie, which, in the Communist Manifesto, he characterizes as a
"Promethean" tragic hero of the drama of history.

To be sure, we know that at the time Marx wrotethisessayhe had

already worked out his own particularbrand of radicalism and had
fullyarticulatedthe theoryof historicalmaterialismby which he pur-
ported to justify,on scientificgrounds,the specifictenetsof his ide-
ology. But we need not suppose that his emplotmentof the eventsof
1848-51 in France in the mode of the satirewas predetermined by the
radical ideologywhichhe had embraced,anymorethanwe need suppose
the reverse,thatis to say, thathis radicalismwas a functionof his per-
ceptionof the essentially"absurd" nature of bourgeoissocietyand its
characteristicpoliticalactivities.We need only note that historicalac-
countsmay or may not come attendedby ideologicalinterpretations of
their "meanings" for the illumination of the historicalsituations in
which theyare composed. And, followingthe suggestionof Marx him-
self,we may furthernote that everyhistoricalaccount of any scope or
profundity presupposesa specificset of ideologicalcommitments in the
very notions of "science," "objectivity,"and "explanation" which
informit.
The sociologistof knowledge,Karl Mannheim, argued that the
different positionson the ideologicalspectrumof modern,class-divided
societies-liberal, conservative,radical, and anarchist (or nihilist)-
each broughtwith it its own formof social time-consciousness and a
particular notion of the extent to which historicalprocesses were sus-
ceptible to, or resisted, rational analysis. And in a masterful essay,
"ConservativeThought," as well as in his influentialIdeology and
Utopia, Mannheim demonstrated the ideologicalbases and implications
of the Rankean ideal of an objectivehistoriography which was estab-
lished as the academic orthodoxyduringthe second half of the nine-
teenthcentury."4
Accordingto Mannheim,ideologiescould be classifiedaccordingto
whethertheywere "situationallycongruent"(i.e., generallyaccepting
of the social statusquo) or "situationallytranscendent"(i.e., critical
of thestatusquo and orientedtowardsitstransformation or dissolution).
Accordingly,the ideal of social sciencehonoredby devoteesof the vari-
ous ideologieswould tend to be eithercontemplative or manipulativeof
theircommonobject of study,which was not "history"per se or "the
past" in general,but ratherthe social matrixexperiencedas an exten-
sion out of the past into the writer'sown present. And what was true
of ideologiesin generalwas trueof historiography giventhe
specifically,
40 Karl Mannheim, "Conservative Thought," in Essays in Sociology and Social

Psychology,ed. Paul Kecskemeti (New York, 1953), PP. 74-164. See also Ideology
and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge, tr. Louis Wirth and
Edward Shils (New York, 1946), pp. 180-82, 2o6-15.

306 NEWLITERARY
HISTORY
fact that historywas in no sense a "science" but was rathera crucial

elementin everyideologystrivingto win the titleof a scienceor posing
as a "realistic"perspectiveon both thepast and the present.Thus, even
those historianswho professedno particular ideological commitment
and who suppressedthe impulse to draw explicitideological implica-
tions fromtheir analysisof past societiescould be said to be writing
fromwithina specifiableideologicalframework, by virtueof theiradop-
tion of a positionvis-a-visthe form that a historicalrepresentation
oughtto take. Unlike the naturalsciences,the human sciencesare-as
the late Lucien Goldmann was fond of stressing-inevitablyimpelled
towards 'the adoption of ideological positionsby the epistemological
wagers that theirpractitioners are forcedto make among contending
theoriesof what an "objective" human science mightlook like. And,
as Mannheim argued,a "contemplative"historiography is at least con-
sonant with,when it is not a projectionof, ideologicalpositionsof
the liberaland conservative, ,the
whetherits practitionersare aware of this
or not.
We may say, then,thatin history-as in the human sciencesin gen-
eral-every representation of the past has specifiableideologicalimpli-
cationsand that,therefore, we can discernat least fourtypesof histori-
cal interpretation having theiroriginsin different kinds of ideological
commitment.Most of the classic historiographers of the nineteenth
centurydrew these implicationsexplicitly,but in ways that were not
always consistentwith the modes of emplotmentused by them to give
the form to their narrativesor the explanatorystrategieschosen to
account for theirrepresentations of processesin particularways. For
example, althougha professedliberal in his political views, Michelet
emplotshis historyof France up to the Revolution in the mode of
romance,which is actually more consonantwith the ideologicalposi-
tionof the anarchist.Moreover,Michelet'sexplanatorystrategy, which
was that of idiography, was inconsistentwith the liberal conviction of
itherational comprehensibility of the historicalprocess. And similarly
forTocqueville: he emplotshistoryas tragedyand explainsit by appeal
to putativelaws of historicaldevelopmentof a specificallymechanistic
sort; but he resistsdrawingthe radical implicationsof theseinterpreta-
tive strategiesfor Ithecomprehensionof the societyof his own time.
Instead, he triesto hold firmto the peculiarblend of liberal and con-
servativeideals that has commendedhim to later historiansof both
stripesas the possessorof a timeless"wisdom" in politicalanalysis.
Historiansof historicalthoughtoftenlament the intrusionof such
manifestly ideologicalelementsinto earlierhistorians'efforts to portray

the past "objectively." But more oftenthey reservesuch lamentation

for the assessmentof the work of historiansrepresenting ideological
positionsdifferent fromtheirown. As Mannheim noted, in the social
sciencesone man's "science" is another's"ideology." This is especially
so in historiography, where the label of "metahistorian"is usually at-
tached to the work of anyone conceivingthe tasks of history-writing
differently fromoneself.
Interpretation thus entersinto historiography in at least threeways:
aesthetically(in the choice of a narrative strategy),epistemologically
(in the choice of an explanatoryparadigm), and ethically (in the
choice of a strategyby which the ideological implicationsof a given
representation can be drawn for the comprehensionof currentsocial
problems). And I have suggestedthat it is all but impossible,except
for the most doctrinaireformsof history-writing, to assign priorityto
one or anotherof the three momentsthus distinguished.This raises
anotherquestion: is thereyetanotherlevel of interpretation more basic
than these?
Here it is temptingto take refugein relativism,and to maintainthat
a givenhistoricalinterpretation has its originsin purelypersonalfactors
peculiar to the historianbeing studied. Which would suggest,in turn,
that thereare as many typesof interpretation in historyas there are
historiansof manifestgeniuspracticingthe craft. But in fact an inter-
estingquaternarypatternhas reappearedin our analysesof the different
levels on which interpretation entersinto the constructionof a given
historicalnarrative. The analysisof plot-structures yieldsfour types:
Romance, Comedy,Tragedy, and Satire. That of explanatorystrategies
has produced four paradigms: idiographic,organicist,mechanistic,
and contextualist.And Ithetheoryof ideologyhas produced fourpos-
sibilities: anarchism, conservatism,radicalism, and liberalism. And
althoughwe have denied the possibilityof assigningpriorityto one
or anotherof the levels of interpretation discriminatedby us, we be-
lieve that the typesof interpretativestrategiesidentifiedare structurally
homologouswith one another. Their homologycan be graphicallyrep-
resentedin the followingtable of correlations:
Mode of Ideological
Mode of Emplotment Mode of Explanation Implication
Romance Idiographic Anarchist
Comedy Organicist Conservative
Tragedy Mechanistic Radical
Satire Contextualist Liberal
We do not suggestthat these correlationsnecessarilyappear in the

308 HISTORY
NEWLITERARY
workof a givenhistorian;in fact,the tensionat the heart of everyhis-

torical masterpieceis created in part by a conflictbetween a given
modality of emplotmentor explanation and the specificideological
commitmentof its author. And often,shiftsin tone or point of view
which occur betweena givenhistorian'searlyand late workcan be ac-
counted forby his efforts to bringhis historicalrepresentations in line
with his ideology,or the reverse. For example,in the work of Toc-
queville, the professed"liberalism"of his Democracy in America was
in conflictwith the Mechanisticmode of explanationand the "tragic"
plot-structure which he used to account forthe specificstructureof the
subject he was dealing with. By the time he had completedthe first
volume of The Old Regime, however,his latent "conservatism"had
come to the fore, the ",tragic"emplotmentwhich he had preferred
earlierhad given place to a specifically"satirical" notion of the his-
toricalprocessin general,and his "mechanistic"explanatorystrategy had
yielded to a more specifically"contextualist"one. Similar kinds of
transformations can be discernedin the corpora of historianssuch as
Michelet,Marx, and Croce. And thissuggeststhatthe richnessof their
severalhistoricalmasterpiecesis providedby the sensitivity with which
they entertain the of
possibilities alternative of
strategies interpretation
duringthe courseof 'theirreflections on history.More doctrinairehis-
torians,such as Ranke, Engels, Buckle,Taine, and to a certainextent
Burckhardt,displayno such sensitivity Their
to alternativepossibilities.
"development" as historiansconsists for the most part of a refinement
of a complexweb of interpretative commitments made earlyin their
careers.
What is trueof individualhistoriansis also trueof historiography in
general. Contending"schools" of historiography can be characterized
by preferences forone or anothercombinationof interpretative strate-
gies, just as differentgenerationswithin a given school can be said
to representvariationson 'the combinations that are possiblein the
sets describedabove. The verypossibility of such combinationsengen-
ders that "conceptual anarchy" which is characteristicof "fields of
study" stillunreducedto the statusof a genuinelyscientificdiscipline.
Unlike physicsafterNewitonor chemistryafterLavoisier, historyre-
mains a fieldof studywithoutgenerallyrecognizedimagesof the form
that analysesmust take, of the language in which findingsare to be
communicated,and of the techniquesof generalizationand verification
to be used in establishingthe truthof its findings.41
41 See Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago,

1962), pp. I8-20, Ch. xiii.

It should be noted that the mark of a genuine scientizationof a

givenfieldof studyis the establishment in it of a technicalterminology,
its liberationfromthe vagariesof ordinaryeducated speech. Although
the establishment of a technicalterminology is not the cause of a dis-
cipline's scientization,it does signal agreementby investigatorsover
what shall be considereda metaphysicaland what a scientificproblem.
A metaphysicalproblemis that which cannot be formulatedin the
technicallanguage employedby practitioners of the disciplineto frame
or
questions provide answers to them. In a fieldsuch as history,then,
the confusionof a metaphysicalwith a scientificquestion is not only
possible but at some stage in a given investigationinevitable. And
althoughprofessionalhistoriansclaim to be able to distinguish between
"properhistory" on the one side and "metahistory" on the other,in fact
the distinctionhas no adequate theoreticaljustification. Every "proper
history"presupposesa "metahistory"which is nothingbut the web of
commitments which the historianmakesin the courseof his interpreta-
tion on the aesthetic,cognitive,and ethical levels differentiated above.
Are such commitmentswholly arbitrary?The recurrenceof the
quaternarypatternin the variouslevelson which interpretation is pos-
siblesuggeststhatit is not. Moreover,if the correlations betweenmodes
of emplotment,of explanation,and of ideological implicationwhich
we have made are valid, we mustentertainthepossibility of the ground-
ing of these modes in some more basic level of consciousness. The diffi-
of
culty identifying this level of is
consciousness,however, manifest.
It arises from the fact that in psychology,as in history,there are a
numberof contendingschools of interpretation, with no one of them
able to claim definitively the title of a genuine science of mind. But
this difficulty may be avoided, we think, by concentrationon the
linguisticbasis of all fieldsof studyas yetstillunreducedto the statusof
a science.We can move the problemback to a groundpriorto that on
which the emotive,cognitive,and moral facultiescan be presumedto
function.This groundis thatof language itselfwhich,in areas of study
such as history, can be said to operatetropologically in orderto prefigure
a fieldof perceptionin a particularmodalityof relationships.If we
distinguish betweenthoseareas of studyin whichspecificterminological
systems, with stipulatedmeaningsforlexical elementsand explicitrules
of grammar and syntax,have been constitutedas orthodoxy-as in
physicswith its dependencyupon mathematicallanguage and a logic
of identity-and those areas of studyin which the problemis still to
produce such a systemof stipulatedmeaningsand syntacticalrules,we
can see thathistorycertainlyfallsinto the latterfield.This means that
historiographical disputeswill tendto turn,not onlyupon thematterof

310 NEWLITERARY
HISTORY
what are the facts,but also upon thatof theirmeaning.But meaningin

turnwill be construedin termsof thepossiblemodalitiesof naturallan-
in termsof the dominanttropologicalstrate-
guage itself,and specifically
gies by which unknownor unfamiliarphenomena are provided with
meaningsby different kindsof metaphoricalappropriations. If we take
the dominanttropesas four: metaphor,metonymy,synecdoche,and
irony,it is obviousthat in language itself,in its generativeor prepoetic
aspect,we mightpossiblyhave the basisforthegenerationof thosetypes
of explanationthat inevitablyarise in any fieldof studynot yet disci-
plinized in the sense of being liberatedfromthe conceptual anarchy
that seemsto signaltheirdistinctively prescientificphases.
a
Following suggestionof Kenneth Burke,we may say that the four
"mastertropes" deal in relationshipsthat are experiencedas inhering
within or among phenomena,but which are in realityrelationships
existingbetween consciousnessand a world of experiencecalling for
a provisionof its meaning.42Metaphor,whateverelse it does, explicitly
assertsa similarityin a differenceand, at least implicitly,a difference
in a similarity.We may call thisthe provisionof a meaningin terms
of equivalence or identity.We may then distinguishmetonymyand
synecdoche,as secondaryformsof metaphor,in termsof theirfurther
specificationof eitherdifferenceor similarityin the phenomenaorigi-
nallyidentifiedin metaphoricalterms. In metonymy, forexample,the
reductionof the whole to the part presupposesthe possibility of distin-
guishing between the whole and the partscomprisingit, but in such a
42 See Kenneth Burke,A Grammar of Motives (Berkeleyand Los Angeles, 1969),

Appendix D, "Four Master Tropes," pp. 503-17. The whole question of the nature
of the tropes is difficultto deal with, and I must confessmy hesitancyin suggesting
that they are the key to the understandingof the problem of interpretationin such
proto-scientificfieldsas history. I am prompted to perseverein this belief,however,
not only by Burke's work, but also by the example of Vico. In The New Science,
Vico suggests (although he does not make the point explicitly) that the formsof
consciousnessof a given age in a culture's historycorrespondto the formsof con-
sciousnessgiven by language itselfto human effortsto comprehendthe world. Thus,
the formsof science, art, religion,politics,etc., of the four ages of a culture's evo-
lution (the ages of gods, heroes,men, and of decline, or ricorso) correspondexactly
to the four stages of consciousness reflectedin the dominance of a given trope:
metaphor,metonymy,synecdoche,and irony,in that order. See The New Science,
tr. Bergin and Fisch, pars. 400-10, pp. 127-32, and pars. 443-46, pp. 147-50. See
also the interestingcorrelationsof mental disorders and linguistic habits made by
Roman Jakobson,on the basis of the contrastbetween "metaphorical" and "meto-
nymic" speech, in his Essais de linguistique generale, tr. Nicolas Ruwet (Paris:
Editions de Minuit, 1963), especially the essay "Le langage commun des linguistes
et des anthropologues,"pp. 25-67. Jakobson expands on these correlations,for pur-
poses of literarycriticismin "Linguistics and Poetics," in Style in Language, ed.
Thomas A. Sebeok (New York and London, Ig60), pp. 350-77.

way as to assignpriorityto partsforthe ascriptionof meaningsto any

putativewhole appearingto consciousness.In synecdoche,by contrast,
the similiardistinctionbetweenparts and the whole is made only for
the purposeof identifying the whole as a totalitythat is qualitatively
different fromthe partsthatappear to make it up.
Burke argues that metonymicusage is reductive,while synecdochic
is representative.3The importantpointis thatin metaphor,metonymy,
and synecdochealike language providesus withmodelsof the direction
that thoughtitselfmighttake in its effortto providemeaningto areas
of experiencenot alreadyregardedas beingcognitively securedby either
commonsense,tradition,or science. And we can see that in a fieldof
studysuch as history,"interpretation" mightbe regardedas what Fou-
cault has called a "formalisation"of the linguisticmode in which the
phenomenalfieldwas originallyprepared for the identification of the
entitiesinhabitingit and the determinationof theirinterrelationships.44
A putativescience construedin the mode of metaphor,for example,
would be governedby search for similitudesamong any two phe-
,the
nomena in the field,the object beingof course to cataloguethe specific
attributesof any given phenomenonby notingwhateversimilaritiesit
had to a host of otherphenomenamanifestlydifferent fromit at first
glance. We would suggestthat thisis the linguisticbasis of that mode
of explanationmet within historiography which we have called "idiog-
raphy."
Metonymy,being reductivein its operations,would providea model
of that formof explanationwhich we have called mechanistic,inas-
much as the latteris characterizedby an apprehensionof the historical
fieldas a complexof part-partrelationships and bythe effort to compre-
hend that fieldin termsof the laws that bind one phenomenonto an-
otheras a cause to an effect.Synecdoche,by contrast,would sanction
a movementin the oppositedirection,towardsintegrationof all appar-
entlyparticularphenomenainto a whole,the qualityof whichwas such
as to justifybeliefin the possibility
of understandingthe particularas a
microcosmof a macrocosmictotality,which is preciselythe aim of all
organicistsystemsof explanation.
This bringsus to thefourthtrope,irony,in manywaysthemostprob-
lematical. Burke has suggestedthat ironyis inherently dialectical,and
thatwe mightconsiderit the tropologicalgroundof a specifically dialec-
43 Burke, Grammar of Motives, pp. 505-10.

44 See Michel Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human
Sciences (New York, I970), pp. 298-300.

tical mode of thought.45I am notsurethisis thecase. To be sure,irony

sanctionsthe ambiguous,and possiblyeven the ambivalent,statement.
It is a kind of metaphor,but one that surreptitiously signals a denial
of the assertionof similitudeor difference containedin the literalsense
of the proposition,or at least sets a crucial qualificationon it. "He is
all heart" containsa metonymy withina synecdoche;"He is all heart,"
if deliveredin the righttone of voice, containsan ironyon top of a
synecdoche.What is involvedhere is a kindof attitudetowardsknowl-
edge itselfwhich is implicitlycritical of all forms of metaphorical
identification,reduction,or integrationof phenomena. In short,irony
is the linguisticstrategyunderlyingand sanctioningskepticismas an
explanatorytactic,satireas a mode of emplotment,and eitheragnos-
ticismor cynicismas a moral posture.46
If thesecorrelationsare at all plausible,it followsthat "interpreta-
tion" in historicalthoughtmay verywell consistof the projection,on
the cognitive,aesthetic,and moral (or ideological) levels of concep-
tualization,of the various tropesauthorizingprefigurations of the phe-
nomenal fieldin natural languages in general. In short,"interpreta-
tion" in historicalthoughtwould consistof the formalizationof the
phenomenalfieldoriginallyconstitutedby language itselfon the basis
of a dominanttropologicalwager. If thiswere the case, we could ac-
count for the "classic" quality of the four recognized "masters" of
nineteenth-century historicalthought-Michelet, Tocqueville, Ranke,
and Burckhardt-in termsof the consistencywith which each carries
throughthe explanation,emplotment, and ideologicalreductionof the
historicalfieldin termsof the linguisticstrategyof prefiguration repre-
sentedby the varioustropes.And in thissenseour interpretation of their
work would consistof the explicationof the tropologicalwager buried
at the heartof theirstrategiesof explanation,emplotment, and ideologi-
cal implicationrespectively. If this interpretativestrategywere correct,
we could thensay that theirthoughtrepresents the workingout of the
possibilitiesof explanation, emplotment,and ideological implication
contained in the linguisticendowment of their age: metaphorical
(Michelet), metonymic (Tocqueville), synecdochic (Ranke), and
ironic (Burckhardt)respectively.
But to suggestthismethodof analysisforthe comprehensionof the
different interpretativestrategiesmet with in historiography is to pose
yet another question, one with which we cannot deal in this essay.
This questionhas to do with the validityof the tropologicaltheoryof
45 Burke, Grammar of Motives, pp. 511-1i6.

46 Cf. Vico on irony,in The New Science, par. 408, p.
I3I.

poetic language itself. Are the tropes intrinsicto natural language?

And if so, do theyfunctionto provide models of representation and
explanationwithinany fieldof studynot yet raised to the statusof a
genuine science? Further: is what we mean by a "science" simplya
fieldof studyin which one or the otherof the tropeshas achieved the
statusof paradigm for the linguisticprotocolin which the scientistis
constrainedto formulatehis questionsand encode his answersto them?
These questionsmust await the furtherresearchesof psychologists and
linguistsinto the of
generativeaspect language and speech. But it does
seem possibleto me that what we mean by "interpretation"can be
clarifiedsignificantly by furtheranalysis of the modalitiesof speech
in which a given fieldof perceptionis renderedprovisionallycompre-
hensibleby being "seized" in language.
In closingthisessay,I should like to returnto a briefconsideration
of the theoriesof historicalinterpretation advanced by the four nine-
teenth-century of
philosophers history alluded to in my introduction.I
noted that Hegel, Droysen, Nietzsche, and Croce all identifiedfour
possiblestrategiesby which historiansmightinterprettheir materials.
And although they name them by their own particularsystemsof
terminology, it is obvious that each conceiveshistoricalinterpretation
to span a spectrumof possibilities whose polesare constituted by a mode
of consciousness thatis essentiallymetaphorical,on the one side,and one
that is predominantly ironic,on the other. Hegel's distinctionsbetween
Universal, Pragmatic, Critical, and Conceptual historiographyare
drawn on the basis of the differences betweena historicalconsciousness
thatis "naive" at one extremeand "sentimental"at the other. The in-
termediarystages can be classifiedas metonymicand synecdochic
respectively, that is to say, reductiveand representative(in Burke's
terminology)in their general orientationas interpretative strategies.
Droysen'scategories(Psychological,Causal, Conditional, and Ethical)
are, in his descriptionsof them,similarlytropologicalat base. And the
same can be said of Nietzsche'sfourfoldsystemof classification(Anti-
quarian, Monumental, Critical, and Superhistorical). Of the four
philosophersmentioned,however,Croce represents the clearestcase of
a tropologicalanalysisof historicalinterpretation masqueradingas a
philosophicalanalysis. His four "schools" of historicalthought (Ro-
mantic,Positivistic,Idealistic,and Critical) resolveinto formsof con-
sciousnesswhich are manifestly metaphorical,metonymic,synecdochic,
and ironicrespectively as he characterizesthem.
It is probablyno accident that each of thesetheoristswas especially
sensitiveto the necessityof identifyingthe poetic and rhetoricalele-

mentsin historiography.Hegel, Nietzsche,and Croce, in fact,can be

characterizedas philosophersof language in a specificsense. Croce
especiallymoved progressively from his study of the epistemological
bases of historicalknowledgeto a positionin which he sought to sub-
sume historyunder a generalconceptof art. His theoryof art,in turn,
was construedas a "science of expressionand general linguistics"
(the subtitleof his Aesthetics). In his analysisof the bases in speech of
all possiblemodes of comprehendingreality,he came closestto grasp-
ing the essentiallytropologicalnature of interpretation in general. He
was kept fromformulating this near perception,most probably,by his
own "ironic" suspicionof systemin any humanscience.
Nonetheless,boththequaternaryformof theseanalysesof themodali-
tiesof historicalinterpretationand thespecificcharacterizations of them
by the theoristsmentioned provide the bases forfurther inquiry into the
tropologicalorigins of the kinds of interpretationmet with in fieldsof
study such as history. Whether such an inquiry would yield an ade-
quate understanding of the operationsof such fieldsof study,I cannot
say. But it would at leastremovecontroversy fromthegroundon which
conflicting ideological commitments come garbed as methodologies and
alternativeparadigmsof explanationare presentedas the sole possible
formsthat a "scienceof history"may take.
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA,
Los ANGELES


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Interpretation in History

Author(s): Hayden White

This content downloaded from 130.132.173.183 on Wed, 2 Oct 2013 03:14:43 AM

HEORISTS OF HISTORIOGRAPHY generally agree that all histori-

This content downloaded from 130.132.173.183 on Wed, 2 Oct 2013 03:14:43 AM

varioustypesof interpretations metwithin historiography.I

I This generalization is more true of American and British theorists than of

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shall maintainthat therecan be no "properhistory"withoutthe pre-

3 G. W. F. Hegel, Vorlesungen iiber die Philosophie der Geschichte (Frankfurt

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The fourfoldnatureof theseclassifications of the modes of historio-

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disclosureof factspreviously unknownor in the generalization that

9 Ibid., p. 59 (translation,p. 39).

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and scientific insightsare more different than similar,have been con-

II The classic defense of the nomological-deductiveconception of historical ex-

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oristsgrantthat "interpretation" may enterinto the historian'saccount

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historianhimself"by abstractionand as thoughunder the threatof an

In them,authorsdo not alwaysmake use of the same incidents;when

This suggeststhat the criterionof validityby which historicalaccounts

Pursuedin isolation,each elementwould showitselfto be beyondgrasp.

The coherenceof the series,however,is the coherenceof myth. As

14 Claude ILvi-Strauss, The Savage Mind (London, 1966), p. 257.

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to those"dates" thatmake up itsspeciousobjectiveframe-

The historian'srelativechoice,with respectto each domain of history

Historiansthen must,on LUvi-Strauss'analysis,decide whetherthey

I6 LUvi-Strauss,Savage Mind, pp. 258-62.

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object corresponding to it"; it is a disciplinewithouta particularsubject

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Thus, althoughFryewantsto insiston importantdifferences between

20 Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (Princeton, 1957), PP-

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fiction,"while we read, we are aware of a sequence of metaphorical

but withwhat degreeof forceto think-and how preciselyto situatethe

The mythicelementin historicalnarration,in short,indicates,"for-

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mally,the appropriate gravityand respect"to be accordedby the

23 Warner Berthoff,"Fiction, History,Myth: Notes Towards the Discrimination

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notionsof possiblestructures of human beingand comportment existing

25 Ibid., pp. 241-45-

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own time. In short,the historiansmentionedeach tell a differentstory

26 In his Reflections on the Revolution in France (New York, I961), Burke

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themthatwe mightbe able to accept as validlyspecified.For, if Col-

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and Toynbee. This is not to suggestthat we cannot findobvious dif-

28 LiSwith (Meaning in History,p. 26) views Burckhardtas the firstmodern his-

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The provisionof a plot-structure, in order to endow the narrative

attempts to constituteit retrospectivelyin any cognitivelysignificantterms. It is

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tion of what an explanationshould consistof, a fieldwhich appears at

29 The distinction drawn here, between dispersive and integrative strategies of

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"scientific"method by Niebuhr, Michelet, and Carlyle.3?The philo-