When history was conceived in the
18th century as being the younger sister of science, it was involved
in a painful struggle to emulate her objectivity and notion of progress. It had
to regard facts as sacrosanct and had to accept authority unquestionably.
Thankfully, history was rescued from the Whiggish notion without significant
damage having been committed to its craft. What liberated history thus from the
drabness of reporting mere facts was imagination. It introduced the concept of
narrativisation and interpretation. History was then on the brink of being
drawn towards the other extreme of “history as an art.” But historians in time
have realized that there is much that history can take from both ends and marry
it to inculcate certain practices and principles of its own. This marriage of science
with art or in other words facts with narratives was brought about by
imagination. Over the years imagination has served as both a constructive and
destructive agent enabling historians to understand the past in new and different
ways.
Imagination as construction
In this regard imagination is
what Bertrand Russell perceived it to be when he stated “What a man loses in
knowledge he gains it in imagination.” Historically this imagination pieces together
fragments of evidence and weaves them into a coherent understanding of the
past. Hayden White in his book Tropics of
Discourse is of the view that “the historian must inevitably include in his
narrative an account of some event or complex of events for which the facts
that would permit the plausible explanation of its occurrence are lacking. This
means the historian must interpret his materials by filling the gaps in his
information on inferential or speculative grounds.”[1]
Thus, imagination in its constructive role aids the historian not only in
narrativisation but also interpretation. How it does so needs further
explanation.
a)
Imagination
as an aide to narrativisation
The act of narrativisation, as
purported by Louis Mink and Hayden White, consists of forming a story. What is
implied by a story here is continuity. A narrative demands a chain of events
stringed together by a common thread. This thread is supplied by imagination.
It lends the narrative its flow. In another sense, as White informs us,
imagination is what converts knowing into telling. However, White’s conception
here is incomplete. Imagination aids not just in telling but also in knowing. Ricouer
in his work Time and Narrative is of the view that “writing in history is not
external to the conceiving and composing of history.”[2]
Thus, the act of narrativisation is “knowing” first and then “telling”.
Imagination being the essence of a narrative, therefore, helps in both knowing
and telling. It helps the historian contextualize facts and plug in lacunae due
to incomplete evidence at one level and at the other helps him coalesce these
into a compelling plot.
Collingwood’s understanding of
imagination is twofold. On one hand it is a priori and on the other structural.
The a priori imagination develops a plot in a manner determined by a necessity
internal to it. As Collingwood informs us “a story, if it is a good story,
cannot develop otherwise than as it does.”[3]
Imagination then sequences a narrative not arbitrarily but in sync with the
need of the narrative. In other words, to Collingwood, “a historian cannot
imagine what cannot be there”.[4]
In other words what a historian can imagine is what could possibly have been
there. His imagination unlike the poet’s cannot run amuck. It has to be in line
with the pieces of evidence that it is trying to connect. A historian’s
imagination therefore has to work within certain paradigms which differentiate
a historical narrative from a purely fictional one. Ricouer calls this kind of
imagination as productive imagination which assists in emplotment of facts.[5]
However, imagination not only structures a narrative but also lends meaning to
it. This meaning is shaped by the historian’s interpretation of past which is
explored in the next section.
b) Imagination as an aide to interpretation
The act of imagining the
structure of a historical narrative is not separate from imagining its form or
dominant theme. The two actions happen in the historian’s mind almost
simultaneously. When putting historical facts in perspective, the historian invariably
interprets the facts according to his own imagination. In the act of
interpreting them, thus, he forms a structure of the narrative in his head. In
this way, the historian is very similar to the poet who fashions the rhyme
scheme of his poem just when he perceives the fanciful object of his poem. He
does not first pen his thoughts and then structure them. The thoughts come in
his head replete with an ornate flow.
White takes this view and
propounds that imagination helps the historian decide the theme of his
narrative. He might view the past he is inquiring about as romantic, idealist, tragic,
comic and so on.[6] The
explanation of the past requires an explanation of the why more than the what.
The “why” often plagued by a dearth of evidence is not always sufficient enough
to explain the event. Thus relying on his imagination the historian constructs
the past in a certain way. However, even
if the why is replete with evidence the historian will still have to perceive
it in order to make sense of it. It is in this perception that imagination
lies. Collingwood calls this perceptual imagination which “supplements and
consolidates the data of perception by presenting to us objects of possible
perception.”
Ricouer though does not side with
White and Collingwood and critiques them by arguing that the past has a plot of
its own and it is the task of the historian to trace that. Instead of creating his
own plot, the historian’s job is to find the pre-configured past. Therefore, to
Ricouer, emplotment is not an act of re-emplotment. It is an act of searching
for the plot structure inherent in the past.[7]
While Ricouer’s view is compelling, the act of finding the past’s pre-figured
plot is both an arduous and unimaginative task. True, the past has its own
storyline, but often its storyline is incomplete. Moreover, the past plot is
drab and lackluster in the sense that it is merely a compendium of facts. Finally,
the prefigured past or res gestae is difficult to produce as it is when seen
through the lens of the present. While the historian must always try and
teleport himself to the world he is studying, he cannot do so with complete
objectivity. His currently held worldview and perceptions of the present will
inadvertently reflect in his reflection on the past. Thus, this is where White’s
tropes of interpretation (comic, satirical etc.) and Collingwood’s perceptual
imagination steps in inevitably.
Thus, imagination is necessary
for constructing the past not only because it helps in assembling facts
together in a cogent whole but also because it lends perspective to the past.
Operating within the confines of certain paradigms of the discipline (which are
also a product of imagination as explained in the next section of the essay),
historical imagination lends a flow to the narrative, a flow which binds
together the writer/historian and the reader and makes an otherwise drab
account of the past more interesting. Not only does it form a story,
imagination also paints the plot in the hues of the historian’s interpretation
of the past. It is courtesy these varied hues that the past can be analysed in
several new ways and each time reveals something new about itself.
Imagination as de-construction
Another way in which imagination
helps a historian is by freeing him from the shackles of authority and
temporality.
a)
Imagination
as historical criticism
Authority in history has two
meanings: one authority is wielded by facts and the other by influential
historians. Imagination helps the historian overcome both sets of authority.
When a historian sets himself to the task of ascertaining himself with facts of
a particular event he tends to reject several of them and accept several
others. These facts he gains from his predecessors who like him were interested
in the question that intrigues him now and in their process of inquiry came up
with certain facts. Therefore, the historian does not need to regard facts as
sacrosanct as most of them are established by human authority. A historian can
choose to challenge the authority if in the process of his inquiry he comes
across new facts. But he can only do so if he imagines a different past from
the one constructed by his influential counterparts. Only then can he look for
more evidence and select from the available pool of facts those which harmonise
with his view of the past. Thus, in doing so the historian’s imagination
deconstructs the old and establishes the new only to be deconstructed again by
another historian’s imagination.
Collingwood is of the opinion
that the historian can “discover what, until he discovered it, no one ever knew
to have happened.”[8]
This he achieves by critically analysing his sources or by using unwritten
sources and at times even by taking an interdisciplinary approach to decipher a
particular piece of the past. The more the historian becomes adept in his craft
and the more he learns the less he is bound by authority. He comes to rely on
his own powers and constitutes himself as his own authority while other authorities
are now relegated to being just evidence.
White however would not go as far
as Collingwood in letting imagination take over factual authority. For him “unless
at least two versions of the same set of events can be imagined, there is no
reason for the historian to take upon himself the authority of giving a true
account of what really happened.”[9]
Yet, when it comes to imagination the matter becomes highly subjective. So, to
say that two different imagined narratives are more authoritative than one, is
a moot point. It is true that more the out of the box connections a historian
forges between his facts, the more matured his perspective becomes. But if we
regard the narrative as being a story then that narrative is an authority in
itself. It is replete with its own set of facts, arguments and imaginative
perceptions. In this way that narrative has been established as an authority.
b)
Imagination
as distortion
Another way in which imagination
works in favour of a historian is by liberating him from the narrow notions of
temporality. Time in history is fluid. Therefore, the historian does not need
to stick to the pulse of time when writing his narrative. His imagination can
spur him to sync the temporality of his event to the tune of his narrative. Hayden
White calls this distortion and defines it as the “departure from the
chronological order of events’ original occurrence so as to disclose their true
or latent meanings.”[10]
Therefore, imagination deconstructs the paradigm of chronologically determined
narratives and instead gives birth to adjusted chronologies for a meaningful
narrative. Just as a fiction writer starts his work with a specific point in time
and then keeps moving back and forth in it as the narrative demands so can a
historian. When describing the First World War he can start with 1916 instead
of 1914 or 1918 and then can move in either directions or in both directions
simultaneously. All this is a factor of his imagined narrative’s needs.
White further goes on to say that
distortion can have two meanings; negative, entailing the selection of facts and
positive, consisting of arrangement of events in an order different from the
chronological order of their original occurrence. In this way for White a
historian employs the Freudian tactics used in interpreting dreams to reveal
their hidden meanings. [11]
Thus imagination as a
de-constructing agent then brings down two major paradigms of the discipline;
authority and time. As discussed in the first section, imagination then
determines its own paradigms and operates within it. It is the historian who imagines
a view of the past and the rest follows. As Collingwood says in his book The
Idea of History “the supposedly fixed points between which the historical
imagination spins its web are not given to us readymade, they must be achieved
by critical thinking.” [12]
Thus, there are several ways in
which a historian employs imagination as a tool to delve deeper into the
innards of his craft. With imagination, not only can history be rest assured of
newness in perspectives but also can be confident of being completely freed
from the suffocating designs of positivism in times to come.
[1] Hayden
White, Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism, John Hopkins
University Press, p. 51
[2]
Paul Ricoeur, Time and Narrative, Volume 1, University of Chicago Press, p. 161
[3]
R.G. Collingwood, the Idea of History, Oxford University Press, p. 579
[4]
Ibid, p. 579
[5]
Paul Ricoeur, Time and Narrative, Volume 2, University of Chicago Press, p. 2
[6]
Hayden
White, Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism, John Hopkins
University Press, p. 51-68
[7]
Paul Ricoeur, Time and Narrative, Volume 1, University of Chicago Press, p. 170
[8]
R.G. Collingwood, The Idea of History,
Oxford University Press, p. 579
[9]
Hayden White, The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical
Representation, John Hopkins University Press, p. 31
[10] Hayden White, Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural
Criticism, John Hopkins University Press, p. 111
[11]
Ibid, p. 111
[12]
R.G. Collingwood, The Idea of History,
Oxford University Press, p. 581
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