Hayden White on Metahistory Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

According to Hayden White, every history is shaped by its metahistory !that is, the archetypal historical narrative that the historian "ses to shape and str"ct"re a story abo"t the past. #etahistories are not embedded in the past!they are imposed on the past, to give it contin"ity, coherency, and meaning. #etahistories pre$ig"re the histories %e %rite. #etahistories have $o"r components. Plot &adapted $rom 'orthrop (rye, Anatomy of Criticism) Romance: a drama o$ sel$*identi$ication symboli+ed by the hero,s transcendence o$ the %orld o$ e-perience, his victory over it, and his $inal liberation $rom it. &.) Tragedy: /n 0ragedy, there are no $estive occasions, e-cept $alse or ill"sory ones1 rather, there are intimations o$ states o$ division among men more terrible than that %hich incited the tragic agony at the beginning o$ the drama. 2till, the $all o$ the protagonist and the shaking o$ the %orld he inhabits %hich occ"r at the end o$ the 0ragic play are not regarded as totally threatening to those %ho s"rvive the agonic test. 0here has been a gain in conscio"sness $or the spectators o$ the contest. And this gain is tho"ght to consist in the epiphany o$ the la% governing h"man e-istence %hich the protagonist,s e-ertions against the %orld have bro"ght to pass. 0he reconciliations that occ"r at the end o$ 0ragedy are . . . somber1 they are more in the nat"re o$ resignations o$ men to the conditions "nder %hich they m"st labor in the %orld. 0heses conditions, in t"rn, are asserted to be inalterable and eternal, and the implication is that man cannot change them b"t m"st %ork %ithin them. 0hey set the limits o$ %hat may be aspired to and %hat may be legitimately aimed at in the 3"est $or sec"rity and sanity in the %orld. &4) Comedy: /n 5omedy, hope is held o"t $or the temporary tri"mph o$ man over his %orld by the prospect o$ occasional reconciliations o$ the $orces at play in the social and nat"ral %orlds. 0he reconciliations %hich occ"r at the end o$ 5omedy are reconciliations o$ men %ith men, o$ men %ith their %orld and society1 the condition o$ society is represented as being p"rer, saner, and healthier as a res"lt o$ the con$lict among seemingly inalterable opposed elements in the %orld1 these elements are revealed to be, in the long r"n, harmoni+able %ith one another, "ni$ied, at one %ith themselves and the others. &4)

Satire: 0he archetypal theme o$ 2atire is the precise opposite o$ 6the7 8omantic drama o$ redemption1 it is, in $act, a drama o$ diremption, a drama dominated by the apprehension that man is "ltimately a captive o$ the %orld rather than its master, and by the recognition that, in the $inal analysis, h"man conscio"sness and %ill are al%ays inade3"ate to the task o$ overcoming de$initively the dark $orce o$ death, %hich is man,s "nremitting enemy. &4) 8omance and 2atire %o"ld appear to be mutually exclusive %ays o$ emplotting the processes o$ reality. . . . 5omedy and 0ragedy represent qualifications o$ the 8omantic apprehension o$ the %orld, considered as a process, in the interest o$ taking serio"sly the $orces %hich oppose the e$$ort at h"man redemption naively held "p as a possibility $or mankind in 8omance. 5omedy and 0ragedy take con$lict serio"sly, even i$ the $orm event"ates in a vision o$ the "ltimate reconciliation o$ opposed $orces and the latter in a revelation o$ the nat"re o$ the $orces opposing man on the other. And it is possible $or the 8omantic %riter to assimilate the tr"ths o$ h"man e-istence revealed in 5omedy and 0ragedy respectively %ithin the str"ct"re o$ the drama o$ redemption %hich he $ig"res in his vision o$ the "ltimate victory o$ man over the %orld o$ e-perience. &4*9:) Formal Argument Formist: 0he (ormist theory o$ tr"th aims at the identi$ication o$ the "ni3"e characteristics o$ ob;ects inhabiting the historical $ield. Accordingly, the (ormist considers an e-planation to be complete %hen a given set o$ ob;ects has been property identi$ied, its class, generic, and speci$ic attrib"tes assigned, and labels attesting to its partic"larity attached to it. 0he ob;ects all"ded to may be either individ"alities or collectivities, partic"lars or "niversals, concrete entities or abstractions. . . . When the historian has established the "ni3"eness o$ the partic"lar ob;ects in the $ield or the variety o$ the types o$ phenomena %hich the $ield mani$ests, he has provided a (ormist e-planation o$ the $ield as s"ch. &9<* 9=) Mechanistic: #echanism is inclined to vie% the >acts, o$ the >agents, inhabiting the historical $ield as mani$estations o$ e-trahistorical >agencies, that have their origins in the >scene, %ithin %hich the >action, depicted in the narrative "n$olds. 0he #echanistic theory o$ e-planation t"rns "pon the search $or the ca"sal la%s that determine the o"tcomes o$ processes discovered in the historical $ield. 0he ob;ects that are tho"ght to inhabit the historical $ield are constr"ed as e-isting in the modality o$ part*part relationships, the speci$ic con$ig"rations o$ %hich are determined by the la%s that are pres"med to govern their interactions. . . . Ultimately, $or the #echanist, an e-planation is considered complete only %hen he has discovered the la%s that are pres"med to govern history in the same %ay that the la%s o$ physics are pres"med to govern nat"re. &9?)

Organistic: 0he @rganist attempts to depict the partic"lars discerned in the historical $ield as components o$ synthetic processes. At the heart o$ the @rganicist strategy is a metaphysical commitment to the paradigm o$ the microcosmic*macrocosmic relationship1 and the @rganicist historian %ill tend to be governed by the desire to see individ"al entities as components o$ processes %hich aggregate into %holes that are greater than, or 3"alitatively di$$erent $rom, the s"m o$ their parts. &9A) /t is characteristic o$ @rganicist strategies o$ e-planation to esche% the search $or the la%s o$ historical process, %hen the term >la%s, is constr"ed in the sense o$ "niversal and invariant ca"sal relationships. . . . 0he @rganicist is inclined to talk abo"t the >principles, or >ideas, that in$orm the individ"al process discerned in the $ield and all the processes taken as a %hole. 0hese principles or ideas are seen as imaging or pre$ig"ring the end to%ard %hich the process as a %hole tends. &9B) Contextualist: 0he in$orming pres"pposition o$ 5onte-t"alism is that events can be e-plained by being set %ithin the >conte-t, o$ their occ"rrence. Why they occ"rred as they did is to be e-plained by the revelation o$ the speci$ic relationships they bore to other events occ"rring in their circ"mambient historical space. Here, as in (ormism, the historical $ield is apprehended as a >spectacle, or richly te-t"red arras %eb %hich on $irst glance appears to lack coherence and any discernible $"ndamental str"ct"re. B"t, "nlike the (ormist, %ho is inclined simply to consider entities in their partic"larity and "ni3"eness!i.e., their similarity to, and di$$erence $rom, other entities in the $ield!the 5onte-t"alist insists that >%hat happened, in the $ield can be acco"nted $or by the speci$ication o$ the $"nctional interrelationships e-isting among the agents and agencies occ"pying the $ield at any given time. &9?*9.) Trope &see Hayden White on 0ropes) #etaphor #etonymy 2ynecdoche /rony Ideological Implication Anarchist 8adical 5onservative Ciberal