Historiography as a discursive practice

Abstract

The aim of the text is to describe some use of literary studies for the studies of history. First of all the recent evolution of the literary studies is outlined, with special stress on expansion of the notion of the subject. It is not any more limited to a human actor, but can be applied to an animal or even an inanimate object. The notion of discursive practice is introduced as a one of the principal key notions of contemporary literary studies. Then few application of literary analysis of discourse for history is enumerated, such as: expanding the scope of historical sources so as to include literary works and other piece of art; critical analysis of historiographical discourse as a text; a new approach to traditional historical sources consisting in treating them as autonomic texts of culture deserving interpretative activity in themselves.