The Transboundary Between Literature And History:A Study On Hayden White's Tropology Poetics

The research topic of this thesis dwells on the theory of tropology from Hayden White who is a historical philosopher and literary critics in American.The theory of tropology is the core of White' s historical poetics.The research on the theory of tropology is the main study of White's overall historical poetics.Meanwhile,it is the study of the motivation mechanism of textual meaning.The research on the motivation mechanism of textual meaning is the value of White's historical poetics for contemporary literary theory.Therefore,this thesis aimes at dealing with the theory of tropology as a starting point.Then according to it to explore the literary value of White's historical poetics.Meanwhile,according to it to explore the motivation mechanism of textual meaning.The thesis first traces the background of the ideological history of White's theory of tropology.This chapter discusses the relationship between White's tropology and Vico's new rhetoric,Kantian transcendentalism,Croce's aesthetics,Barthes'symbolism and Foucault's discourse theory.Vico's discussion on poetic logics provides resources for conceptual terms directly to White's tropology.Kant's transcendental critique leads White to endow tropology with prefigurative foundation.Croce's aesthetics contributes White to pay close attention to the presentation of historical texts.Barthes's semiotic analysis constitutes directly the theme of White's"Metahistory".Foucault's discourse theory inspires White to construct his tropology.Then the thesis analysis ontologically White's tropology from two aspects of connotation and extension respectively.The second chapter discusses the connotation of tropology and its generation characteristics.The connotation of tropology is composed of metaphor,metonymy,synecdoche and irony.Metaphor is a kind of similar thinking mode,which urges people to form a kind of analogical discourse principle.Metonymy is a kind of neighboring thinking mode,which urges people to produce a kind of alternative discourse principle.Synecdoche is a kind of synthesis thinking mode,which urges people to form a kind of organic discourse structure.Irony is a kind of oppositional thinking mode,which encourage people to produce a kind of litotes discourse principle.The four kinds of tropology have the function of pre-construction,previously endowing historical discourse with display type.The third chapter discusses the extension of tropology and configuration of historical narration.White casts four kinds of tropology above on the generative image of historical discourse.He particularly investigates tropology's the function of pre-construction on historical representation.Tropology dominates three layers of logics of historical narration:the plot,formal argument and ideological implication.The interpretation of the plot gives the historical narration a specific type of story,which makes the historical narration show the meaning of historical.Formal argument is the cause of the formation of plot interpretation.By using specific kind of reasoning argument,historians provide an explanation for the events in the plot.Each historical narration shows a kind of non-reducible ideological position with respect to whether society needs change,the direction of change and the way of change and so on.Therefore,ideological implication embodies the ethical dimension of historical narration.At last but not the least,the thesis further investigates the dynamic mechanism of tropology respectively from the two dimensions of discourse and time.The fourth chapter analysis the effect of interdiscoursivity of tropology.The tropology has ability to dominate the gereration of discourse because of its function of interdiscoursivity which means referentiality,code translation and reflexive related dimension.Referential dimension shows the most basic communication level of narrative discourse.It is embodied in the dual meaning of "event"in object level and "fact"in signified level.The code translation dimesion shows that narrative discourse contains a kind of productive system of meaning which is formed in integrating all aspects of code.These different symbols demonstrate the conversion process between them.The textual meaning is formed in the multi-level coversion of discourse system.The reflexive related dimension reveals the ontological function of which tropology is considered as a kind of meta-discourse.The fifth chapter discusses the temporal structure of tropology.Historical narration,as a kind of symbolic discourse,shows three kinds of temporal structures.The first kind is the chronological time of historical narration.In historical narration,it not only presents a feature that a series of events is ranked in chronological order,but also merges with narrators'internal time consciousness of their own.The second kind is the representation time of historical narration.The events in the historical narration also present a kind of story that has the plot pattern,thus entrust the historical events with the complete historicity.The third kind is the continuous time of historical narration.This kind of temporal experience organizes the deep structure of historical narration into the dialectical unity of the present,the past and the future.The three dimensions of temporal structure provide a kind of integrity that synthesizes a whole historical narration.The kind of integrity leads to the meaning which implies in events be prominent.