Historical Narration and Literary Imagination: The Chinese Poems of the Angel Island
Author(s)
Yu-Ju Hung
ABSTRACT
The debate about the essence of historical narration between investigation of empirical sources and the historical imagination in line with literature genre and poetic act usually challenges classic definition of history and historical methodology. Modified theories try to connect the narrative forms of creative literature and the literary imagination to conventional historical writing, as well as by rethinking the boundary of text and context. In this article, the examination of Angel Island poems in many ways demonstrates varied applications for the historical narrations and provides critical historical resources through multiple representations of historical imaginations with cross-time and cross-space figurativeness and metaphors.
The debate about the essence of historical narration between investigation of empirical sources and the historical imagination in line with literature genre and poetic act usually challenges classic definition of history and historical methodology. Modified theories try to connect the narrative forms of creative literature and the literary imagination to conventional historical writing, as well as by rethinking the boundary of text and context. In this article, the examination of Angel Island poems in many ways demonstrates varied applications for the historical narrations and provides critical historical resources through multiple representations of historical imaginations with cross-time and cross-space figurativeness and metaphors.
Cite this paper
Hung, Y.-J. (2015) Historical Narration and Literary Imagination: The Chinese Poems of the Angel Island. Advances in Historical Studies, 4, 380-388. doi: 10.4236/ahs.2015.45027.
Hung, Y.-J. (2015) Historical Narration and Literary Imagination: The Chinese Poems of the Angel Island. Advances in Historical Studies, 4, 380-388. doi: 10.4236/ahs.2015.45027.
References
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http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/468653 [27] Paul, H. (2011). Hayden White: The Historical Imagination. Cambridge: Polity Press. [28] Riverside Municipal Museum (1991). Life in Little Gom-Benn: Chinese Immigrant Society in Riverside, 1885-1930. Riverside, CA: Riverside Municipal Museum. [29] Sandmeyer, E. C. (1991). The Anti-Chinese Movement in California. Urbana and Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press. [30] Sowell, T. (1981). Ethnic America: A History. New York: Basic Books. [31] Staff Writer (1878). San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, January 10, 1878. [32] Takaki, R. (1993). A Different Mirror: A History of Multicutlural America. Boston, MA: Little, Brown. [33] Thompson, R. D. (1978). Founding of San Bernardino’s Chinatown. Heritage Tales, 1, 4-10. [34] White, H. (1973). Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. [35] White, H. (1987). The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press. [36] Wong, C. F. (1999). Anonymity and Self-Laceration in Early Twentieth Century Chinese Immigrant Writing. Melus, 24, 3- 18. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/468170 [37] Wong, W. (2004). Oakland’s Chinatown. Charleston, SC: Arcadia. [38] Yang, J. S. (2009). The Anti-Chinese Cubic Air Ordinance. American Journal of Public Health, 99, 440.
http://dx.doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2008.145813 [39] Zhu, L. P. (1997). A Chinaman’s Chance: The Chinese on the Rocky Mountain Mining Frontier. Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado.