Literature and History

This collection of essays addresses the generally troubled relations between the disciplines of literature and history, and the patterns of validation and legitimation to which they appeal. The methodological differential may be stated in a series of simple terms: fiction vs. fact, narrative vs. event, form vs. content, and imagination vs. reality. By temperament or by training, historians and literary scholars tend to place different priorities upon the elements of these pairs. This book goes beyond the impasse to suggest new and more fruitful perspectives on what actually goes on, or ought to go on, within and between the disciplines.