"The Artistry of Prescott's "The Conquest of Mexico

A S an historian who wished to reach a wider audience than one limited to members of his profession, Prescott went beyond the scientific treatment of his subject and approached his material as a literary artist. To be sure, he was determined to write an historically accurate book, but he intended also to make his work artistically successful. Such an ambition, however, not only involved the historian's necessity of adhering to incontrovertible fact, but also imposed the difficult problems of literary artistry. To solve this difficulty, there was one thing which he, as both historian and artist, could do: he could interpret the facts and give them meaning. In other words, he could develop throughout his work a theme which would solve the problems of form and structure. That Prescott had a mature understanding of the relation of form to theme is clear. He wrote that he liked the

Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · CONQUEST · History · History of Science and Natural History

• The Canonizer De-Canonized

  John E Eipper•Hispania•2000

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