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Historicism History And The Figurative Imagination By Hayden White

Historicism History And The Figurative Imagination By Hayden White

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This is a summary of “Historicism, History, and the Figurative Imagination” an essay by Hayden White in “Tropics of Discourse Essays in Cultural Criticism”.
In this essay, White begins by addressing the difficulties historians may have in reporting history because of the inherent bias or lack of expertise the historian brings in a particular field of study in order to distinguish the significance of the events. A good historian, as stated by White, consistently reminds us that history is always an incomplete record and the events are ever changing as new information is considered.
A large part of White’s focus of this essay is the boundaries between history and literature, fact and fiction. White believes historical narratives are verbal fiction.

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