海登·怀特的七种姿态肖像

Hayden White:A Portrait in Seven Poses

这篇文章勾勒了海登·怀特(1928—2018)的一幅肖像。部分通过分析他的作品,部分通过以访谈形式(依据2005年与他的一次谈话)对他的提问。尽管将评论与访谈这两种文献类型混合的做法可能不同寻常,但这个做法有助于实现两个目的:其一,它使这篇对怀特思想的介绍尽可能地容易理解,尤其是对那些还不熟悉《元史学:19世纪欧洲的历史想象》或《形式的内容》的读者而言。其二,它容许多重声音存在。这些声音不仅包括访谈者与受访者的声音,更重要的是,也包括本文建议区分的几个“怀特”的声音。怀特毕竟不是那种可以在一个单一框架内轻易解读的学者。因此,本文描述了怀特在不同时期的几种姿态:历史学家、历史哲学家、文学理论家、文化理论家、散文家、教师和最后但同样重要的存在主义人文主义者。在区分这七种(部分重叠的)姿态时,本文力图诠释的怀特本质上是多声部的,努力公正对待怀特的各种文献类型、姿态和声音。

This article sketches a portrait of Hayden White(1928-2018),partly by analyzing his work,partly by interrogating him in interview form(drawing on a conversation held back in 2005).Although this mixture of genres-commentary and interview-may seem unusual,it serves two purposes:it makes this introduction to White’s thinking as accessible as possible,especially for readers not yet familiar with Metahistory or The Content of the Form,while at the same time allowing for a multiplicity of voices.These voices include not only those of interviewer and interviewee,but also,more importantly,those of the several“Whites”that this article proposes to distinguish.White,after all,was not the kind of author who can easily be captured in a single frame.This article therefore portrays White in several poses,on different moments in time:as a historian,a philosopher of history,a literary theorist,a cultural theorist,an essayist,a teacher,and,last but not least,an existentialist humanist.In distinguishing these seven(partly overlapping)poses,the article seeks to offer an interpretation of White that is fundamentally multivocal,trying to do justice to a variety of genres,poses,and voices found in White.