A Study Of Hayden White's Historical Narrative Theory

Hayden White(1928-),is one of the most famous contemporary Western historical philosophers.After 1960,he set foot in the field of historical philosophy.He applied the reseach results of philosophy,literature,linguistics and other disciplines to construct a theory to analyze historical texts.This paper discusses Hayden White's historical narrative theory in order to understand the deep meaning of White's historical narrative theory,so as to deepen the understanding of the real problem of history.In this paper,the author discusses the origin of Hayden White's historical narrative theory briefly.After expounding simply the process of historical development and the development of historical philosophy,the author set up some sub-sections to narrate Hayden White's history narrative theory,in order to sort out the history of Hayden White's narrative theory.Influenced by structuralist narratology,Hayden White initially put the focus of academic research on the historical narrative works of the emplotment model,the form of demonstration model and ideological implication model,to explore the structure of the narrative works and the relation among the various elements.But Hayden White's standpoint in only text-centered critical position is undoubtedly undesirable.Then Hayen White continued his theory of historical narrative and extended it to the field of discourse.And gradually combining the theory of historical narrative with the theory of discourse,he explored the diversion of historical discourse and the way in which it plays its role.Thus Hayden White pointed out that the narrative is not merely an available or unusable form of discourse and that must also contain ideology.With the academic community concerning a series of real events such as the massacre,Hayden White advocates historians' imagination must accept the fact that the restrictions,which is amended his early narrative theory to some extent.