History and fictionality insights and limitations of a literary perspective

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1、RethinkingHistoryVol.8,No.3,September2004,pp.387–402HistoryandFictionality:InsightsandLimitationsofaLiteraryPerspectiveZhangLongxiInbothChinaandtheWest,theliteraryqualityofhistoricalnarrativeshasbeenfullyrecognized.Inrecentpostmoderntheories,however,therecognitionofhist

2、oryasnarrativeisgivenaradicalinterpretationthatchallengesnotonlythetruth-claimofhistoricalnarratives,butalsotheverydistinctionbetweenfactandfiction,realityandtextuality.BydrawingonbothChineseandWesternsources,thisarticlerevisitsthedebateonhistoryandfictionality,andrefutes

3、boththeextremepositionofinsistingontheobjectivetruthofhistoricalrepresentationandthecompletelyrelativistviewthatdenieshistorythepossibilityofrepresentingreality.Giventheinfluenceofthepostmoderntheories,itisparticularlyimportanttoacknowledgethedifferencebetweenhistoricala

4、ndliterarynarratives.Historyasnarrativeshareswithliteratureelementsofconstructiveimagination,butitultimatelydependsonacoreoffactsverifiablebynon-linguisticmeans.Whenwerealizethatthetruthrecoveredfromthepastinhistoricalwritingisnotfinalandabsolute,butcanbeimprovedtoapproxi

5、matethetrue,wecanbothacceptthetruth-claimofhistoriographyandsubjectthatclaimtofurtherinvestigationandmodifica-tion.Keywords:History;Fictionality;Relativism;Postmodernism;Chinesehistor-iographyThefactthatthewrittenrecordofhistoryorhistoriographyisanarrativeaccountofpastev

6、entshasreceivedmuchscholarlyattentioninhumanisticstudies,particularlyasaresultoftheexpansionofthedomainofliterarytheorytootherdisciplinesandfields.Tounderstandthephenomenoninabroadperspectiveoftwentieth-centurydevelopmentinthehumanities,thisISSN1364-2529(print)/ISSN1470-

7、1154(online)ª2004Taylor&FrancisLtdDOI:10.1080/1364252042000247837388L.Zhangmaybeseenasaninevitablestepforscholarstomoveawayfromnineteenth-centurybiasesofscientismandpositivism,andfromarigidconceptofobjectivetruthasdiscoveryoftheimpersonallawsofnatureandsocietyunadultera

8、tedbyhumansubjectivityandimagination.Historyaswhathappenedinthepastandasastoryaboutwhathappened—andhereonethin