The Road To Rebellion Towards Narratism

Hayden White,as one of the most influential figures in the contemporary Western historical theory,his masterpiece " Metahistory " has promoted a postmodern narrative turn in history.This article mainly explores White’s concept of history from the publication of Hayden White’s Metahistory.When we review White’s historical works from the 1950 s and early 1960 s,we can see that most of them interpret history from the perspective of positivism.The article "The Burden of History" in 1966 reflects White’s rethinking of historical disciplines.The birth of “Metahistory” in1973 laid the foundation for White’s narrative view of history.So how did White’s ideas come into being? What has changed? This article attempts to explore the changes of his historical ideas through Hayden White’s early life experience and the study of his historical works.This article mainly introduces Hayden White’s theoretical contributions,academic evaluation of Hayden White,and the degree of acceptance of Hayden White by the domestic academic community,especially the history community.Explain the reason for choosing the topic and the research methods and research ideas used in the article.This article introduces the historical environment of Hayden White.Practice determines consciousness,and life determines cognition.White entered the field of history in a radical and turbulent society and witnessed the vigorous development of the history field.This challenging environment gave White a new understanding of the discipline of history.Hayden White is good at drawing on and absorbing different historical theories.Early White was deeply influenced by the social sciences and focused on the methodology of history.In the study of church history in the middle century,the theories and methods of Weber,Hempel,and Toynbee were mostly used.Due to the limited influence of historical knowledge in positivist history and the misunderstanding of historical disciplines in literature and other disciplines,Hayden White proposed to liberate history and reconstruct a new history.White then borrowed the ideas of Veco and Croce and turned his historical research perspective to historical writing.White finally put the research perspective on the understanding of historical events and historical texts.White draws on Collingwood’s reenactment theory to focus on the narrative interpretation of historical events in historical texts,emphasizing the role of man in historical writing.At the same time,White analyzed the different interpretations of historical texts by current structuralism.White merged the advantages of both to reinterpret historical texts,and White’s narrative historical concepts gradually formed.In summary,the formation of Hayden White’s narrative historical concept has gone through a long process.White was widely absorbed and good at reflection,paving the way for the formation of his narrative historical theory,while White’s theory promoted the historical Interdisciplinary exchanges provide a reference direction for the new development of history.