An Experimental Analysis on Reading historical narrative as literary Artefact: a Metahistorical Analysis of Manu s. Pillai‟s Rebel Sultans
Reshmy Raj1, Sreenath Muraleedharan K.2
1Reshmy Raj, M. Phil. Student, Department of English and Languages, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Kochi Campus, India.
2Sreenath Muraleedharan K., Assistant Professor, Department of English and Languages, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Kochi Campus, India.
Manuscript received on 09 June 2019 | Revised Manuscript received on 14 June 2019 | Manuscript Published on 08 July 2019 | PP: 453-457 | Volume-8 Issue-8S3 June 2019 | Retrieval Number: H10210688S319/19©BEIESP
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© The Authors. Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering and Sciences Publication (BEIESP). This is an open-access article under the CC-BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Abstract: ‘Isotoria’, the Greek term for history defines history as an enquiry or an exploration of archives and historical evidence. But it is through the narrative part that the historical imagination of the historian is transferred. Hence the process of writing of history involves a scientific and creative procedure. The creative part of historiography is centred on the ‘historical narrative’ which makes the core of this study. The primary text selected for the study is Rebel Sultans authored by Manu S. Pillai. The study tries to trace the narrative strategies that enabled the author to convert historical evidence into a proper historical narrative. The theoretical framework adopted for the analysis comes from Metahistory: Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe, the seminal work of the American historiographer Hayden White, published in 1973. The study analyses the process of construction of the narrative of Rebel Sultans based on the five levels of conceptualisation proposed by Hayden White such as chronicles, story, mode of emplotement, mode of argument and mode of ideology.
Keywords: History, Historiography, Narrativity, Metahistory, Chronicle, Historical Narrative, Literary Artefact, Objectivity, Rebel Sultans Etc.
Scope of the Article: Applied Mathematics and Mechanics