A Study Of Hayden White’s Theory Of Poetic Historic Philosophy

Hayden White，a famous contemporary American intellectual historian, philosopher ofhistory and literary critic，led the linguistic turn in philosophy of history after1970s. Hishistorical poetic theory has made narratives the focus of discussion in philosophy of history,playing a role as an important turning point to produce narrative philosophy of history. Heintroduced the poetic philosophy of history into the field of literary criticism, making a classicexample of interdisciplinary research. The poetic philosophy of history he initiated recreated anew arena for the development of philosophy of history. This paper chooses White’s poeticphilosophy of history as a case study to understand and grasp the poetic characteristics in hisphilosophy of history, to further clarify the direction of development of the contemporaryWestern philosophy of history, and provide a reference for the development of contemporaryhistorical theory in China.Focused on discourse and text, Hayden White’s historical narratives bring major changesto the study objects of philosophy of history. His poetic philosophy of history is different fromother philosophies of history in terms of theory construction. The focus of its attention is on thenarrative and historical interpretation, tropics of discourse, poetics of history and social structure,historical narratives and historical reality, form and content and other issues. The poeticphilosophy of history White pioneered has opened up a new path for the development ofphilosophy of history.This article begins with the reflection on traditional historiography. First of all, throughanalyzing the development course of philosophy of history, it ushers in Hayden White as therepresentative of narrative philosophy of history, and then introduces the structure of White’sthought by elaborating on the history of formalism literary theory and plot patterns, to clarify thebackground and origins of his poetic philosophy of history. Secondly, it comprehensively spellsout the basic content of White’s poetic perspective of history from such four aspects as theformation and development of White’s poetic philosophy of history, prefabricated poetic historical narrative, tropics of discourse and narrative history text. Finally, it discusses about the“truth” and limitations of poetic philosophy of history and makes an overall evaluation of thepoetic characteristics of White’s philosophy of history.