Abstract

In this paper I examine Hayden White's conception of "narrative", clarifying the relationship between the four modes of "trope" each of which characterizes the deep structure of historical imagination and the four modes of "emplotment" each of which is gradually revealed to be a story of a particular kind. To begin with I emphasize White's continuous assertion that histories should be examined as literary artifact, that is, "narrative" which consists of a deep structure as a mode of trope and a surface structure as a mode of emplotment and their relationship is reciprocal. And I also notice that White's own analysis of the theoretical models such as "emplotment" and "trope" in historical representation provides a new perspective on the current debate over the nature of "historical knowledge" and the problem of "truth." From a hermeneutical point of view White's conception of narrative can be defined a symbolic structure to humanize time and to structure human action. This indication is nothing other than the inevitability of "narrativizaton" of real events to understand really "human past". Finally, I argue that White's narrative theory enables us to elucidate not only the perspectives of "textual intention," but those of "authorial intention" in historical narrative