History's Many Cunning Passages
Paul Ricoeur's Time and Narrative
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4375485 |
|---|---|
| Authors | J P Connerty (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1990 |
| Volume | 11 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 383 |
| Publication date | 1990-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Poetics Today (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0333-5372 • E-ISSN: 1527-5507 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/1772623 |
| OpenAlex | W2334483630 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 6 |
In Three Essays on Theory of Sexuality, Freud criticizes popular conception of sexual development, which beautifully reflected in poetic fable which tells how original human beings were cut up into two halves-man and woman-and how they are always striving to unite again in love (1962 [1942]: 45-46). Freud offers in contrast his own narrative account, which radically revises conception of infantile sexuality and can explain existence of sexual aberration, but which in doing so raises question of how any one story can be better than another. In The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault recounts another popular conception of sexuality, in which, the story goes, frankness of seventeenth century is replaced by repression of Victorian age, which continues to dominate today (1987: 3-6). These two popular stories can be contrasted as a partially formalized account of individual sexuality versus a more properly historical account of sexuality in general, but most striking point is that, unlike Freud, Foucault does not offer an alternative narrative account of his own, instead proposing an inquiry into reasons why we should ever have believed popular story at all. Foucault's apparent rejection of narrative is very significant; of all human sciences, history is one that most obviously employs narrative techniques, and historiographers have given a great deal of thought to role of narrative in history writing. As Peter Gay comments, Historical narration without analysis is trivial, historical analysis without narration is incomplete (1975: 189). Poetics Today 11:2 (Summer 1990). Copyright ? 1990 by The Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics. ccc 0333-5372/90/$2.50
Art · Literature · Narrative · Hermeneutics and Narrative Identity · Narrative Theory and Analysis · Philosophy · Philosophy, History, and Historiography
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |