How to Write History
How to Write History is the title of a study by the classical Syrian[1] writer Lucian, which may be considered the only work on the theory of history-writing to survive from antiquity.[2]
Themes
The first part of Lucian’s essay involved a critical attack on contemporary historians. Lucian maintained that they confused history with panegyric, overloaded it with irrelevant details, and weighed it down with overblown rhetoric.[3]
Lucian recommended instead the virtues of clear narration, and the valorisation of truth.[4] He argued that the historian should write for all times, as “a free man, fearless, incorruptible, the friend of truth”;[5] and held up the work of Thucydides as the legislative template for all subsequent historians.[6] He argued that the "historian's sole task is to tell the tale as it happened" which is latter reflected in works of von Ranke among others.
Later influence
- The early Renaissance saw the essay taken up by figures like Guarino da Verona and Giovanni Pontano.[7]
- Edward Gibbon, who wrote of “the inimitable Lucian”, owned the 1776 edition of Quomodo Historia Conscribenda Sit (Oxford)[8]
See also
References
- ^ Richter, Daniel S. (2017). "Chapter 21: Lucian of Samosata". In Richter, Daniel S.; Johnson, William A. (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of the Second Sophistic. Vol. 1. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. p. 328-329. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199837472.013.26. ISBN 978-0-19-983747-2.
- ^ Lucian and Historiography
- ^ Butcher, S. H. (1904). Harvard Lectures on Greek Subjects. London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd. p. 249. Retrieved 18 March 2020 – via Internet Archive.
- ^ M Winkler, Fall of the Roman Empire (2012) p. 181-2
- ^ Butcher, S. H. (1904). Harvard Lectures on Greek Subjects. London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd. p. 250. Retrieved 18 March 2020 – via Internet Archive.
- ^ P J Rhodes, Intro, Thucydides: The Peloponnesian War (OUP 2009) p. l
- ^ D Marsh, Lucian and the Latins (1998) p. 29
- ^ E Gibbon, Abridged Decline and Fall (Penguin 2005) p. 63 and p. 782
External links
- "The Way to Write History". The Works of Lucian of Samosata. Complete with exceptions specified in the preface. Vol. II. Translated by Fowler, H. W.; Fowler, F. G. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1905. pp. 109-136. Retrieved 23 March 2020 – via Internet Archive.
- "How to Write History". LUCIAN. Vol. VI. Translated by K. Kilburn. London and Cambridge, Massachusetts: William Heinemann Ltd. and Harvard University Press. 1959. pp. 1–73. Retrieved 18 March 2020 – via Internet Archive.
- The Way to Write History
- Wikisource version How to Write History