Historiography as Fiction, Fiction as History: An Overview of the Use of Historiographical Discourse to Narrate Possible Futures since the Nineteenth Century

• Autores: Mariano Martín Rodríguez
• Localización: Hélice, ISSN-e 1887-2905, Vol. 8, Nº. 1, 2022, págs. 38-58
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The double dimension of historiographical writing—documentary and artistic—has been virtually overshadowed by the emphasis on the scientific nature of the discipline and its subsequent exclusion from the literary canon from the nineteenth century onwards. Fictional or imaginary history emerged at that time as a way to safeguard the literariness of history as a formal genre, using the rhetorical discourse of historiography to achieve an effect of historicity in texts that often had a satirical or cautionary intent. Most of these convey primarily considerations about the evolution of humanity and its history, as seen from a future perspective. In this kind of historiography, which we shall refer to as imaginary or anticipatory history, future historians addressing their contemporary readership narrate their past history, which, for us, is the future. By eschewing the narrative form of the novel and adopting instead that of historiography, these writers also broaden the temporality of historical consciousness: future events become as real as any in the past and can be examined following the historical method, with their fictionality concealed under the cloak of factual discourse. Moreover, the historical laws posited by the authors are shown in action in the future as well. Fictional historiography is not only literature, but also anticipatory history. Examples of this genre are relatively abundant in modern literatures. As literary products, most of them follow a similar writing method: the one prevalent in the historiography of the age in which they were produced. As historical reflections, they usually have widely different approaches to the future course of humankind and the forces that propel it through historical time, from past to future.