Introduction
The
important terms of methodology under historiography were oral history, folk
lore, myth, etc where this paper mainly talks about them which gives the basic
information about the headings given in synopsis. It also consist of how the
great scholars consider these terms according to their perspectives.
Synopsis
Ø History
Ø Oral history
Ø Historiography
Ø Myth
Ø Mythology
Ø Folk lore
History
History,
study of the past through documents, reports, and other artifacts. The past can be inferred through many sources
chronicles, myths, buildings, monuments, art archeological objects. Earlier times for which no such sources exist
are known as prehistory. History as a
branch of knowledge is generally confined to the written records of human
activities, which limits its scope to the invention of writing, about 5,000
years ago.
The
oldest historical writings stem from china, where archeologists found historical
records written before 1,000B.C. in the older civilizations of Egypt and
Mesopotamia historical records also appear soon after the introduction of
writing. The conscious writing of
history is generally considered to have begun in Greece about the 5th
century B.C with herodotus’s description of the wars between Greece and
Persia. What made his work history was
his conscious attempt to record events of importance and to set forth the
motivations of the people involved. This
causal approach to events of the past earned Herodotus the title ‘father of
history’, although unlike modern historians, he did not try to verify all his
facts and mixed tradition, oral remembrances, and fable along with actual
occurrences and customs. A more
analytical method of writing about the past was developed by his successor,
Thucydides, whose history of the Peloponnesian war is a grave, authentic
account of the 27-year war between Athens and Sparta. A third great Greek historian, Xenophon,
concentrated more on the purely narrative aspects of history. These types of historical writing, the
compendious, the analytical, and the roman historians include livy(history from
the founding of the city), tacitus (annals and histories) and Julius Caesar
(commentaries), although caesar’s work tends more towards reportage than pure
history. During medieval times,
Christian monks developed the idea of a universal history which attempted to
unite Christian history with the greek and roman records. Eusebius’s
ecclesiastical history is an example, as is Saint Augustine’s city of god,
which presented, in addition, a philosophy off history. At the same time, annals of events called
chronicles were compiled, mainly by members of the clergy. Bede’s ecclesiastical history of the English
nation was the great historical work of the middle ages.
In more modern times, history developed into a
serious discipline pursued by scholars.
Edward Gibbson’s history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire
(1776-88) is an early example of dedicated and thorough scholarship. In the 1800s critical, objective history
developed into an academic discipline, as exemplified by the works of the German
historian Leopold von ranke and his followers. This German school established
canons of criticism and methods of historical analysis that are still in
evidence today. The 20th
century saw a broadening of the scope of history up until the 19th
century. Today, events of the past are analyzed
using tools form many disciplines, including economics, psychology, sociology,
and anthropology. Our technological
society also fostered an interest in the history of science and in the effect
technology has on society. Today, all
aspects of the life of peoples and societies form the proper concern of
historians.
Oral history
"Oral
History" is used to refer to formal, rehearsed accounts of the past
presented by culturally sanctioned tradition-bearers; to informal conversations
about "the old days" among family members, neighbors, or coworkers;
to printed compilations of stories told about past times and present
experiences; and to recorded interviews with individuals deemed to have an
important story to tell.
Shortly
after Abraham Lincoln's death in 1865, for example, his secretary, John G.
Nicolay, and law partner, William Herndon, gathered recollections of the
sixteenth president, including some from interviews, from people who had known
and worked with him. Similarly, social investigators historically have obtained
essential information about living and working conditions by talking with the
people who experienced them. Thus, the Pittsburgh Survey, a Progressive Era
investigation of social conditions in that city designed to educate the public
and prod it towards civic reform, relied heavily on evidence obtained from oral
sources.
The oral histories of the
men and women of the anthracite region in general render a complicated picture
of economic crisis. It is not difficult to understand how, in interview after
interview, oral history opens up new views of the past. Of course, not all oral
history falls into the category of social history. Interviews abound with
politicians and their associates, with business leaders, and the cultural
elite. In addition to recording the perspectives of those in power, these
interviews typically get at "the story underneath the story," the
intricacies of decision-making, the personal rivalries and alliances and the
varying motives underlying public action, that are often absent from the public
record.
Historiography
Historiography is the history of history. The subject of historiography is
the history of the history of
the event: the way it has been written, the sometimes conflicting objectives
pursued by those writing on it over time, and the way in which such factors
shape our understanding of the actual event at stake, and of the nature of
history itself. Historiography questions three things they are who, how and
what
.
- Who writes history, with what
agenda in mind, and towards what ends?
- How accurate can a historian be
analyzing past events from the vantage point of the historian's present?
- What about the
types of sources both primary and secondary, an historian chooses to base his or her
work upon?
Myth
Over time the meaning of the word myth
and the effect that myths themselves have had on society has been hypothesized
and expounded upon by many individuals from some of the most respected
theorists to the most humble field worker
Throughout
the centuries, however, the Greek “mythos” and subsequently the English “myth”
has endured many different interpretations from many different theologians and
philosophers. Although the meanings of many words and phrases have been, and
still are, debated on a continuous basis, the deliberation over the semantic
meaning of few other words has had such a far reaching effect on various
cultures and human society as a whole.
According
to Edward D. Ives, No song, no performance, no act of creation can be properly
understood apart from the culture or subculture in which it is found and of
which it is a part; nor should any "work of art” be looked on as a thing
in itself apart from the continuum of creation-consumption.
The
meaning of the word “myth” itself has been debated for centuries. “The English
word “myth” derives from the Greek word mythos…”
One of the earliest documented uses of the word mythos is found in Hesiod’s
Theogony (app. 700 BCE) in which mythos seems to have meant something like
“divinely inspired”.
A
myth is a story based on tradition or legend, which has a deep symbolic meaning. A myth ‘conveys a truth’ to those who tell it
and hear it, rather than necessarily recording a true event. Although some myths can be accounts of actual
events, they have become transformed by symbolic meaning or shifted in time or
place. Myths are often used to explain
universal and local beginnings and involve supernatural beings. The great power of the meaning of these
stories, to the culture in which they developed, is a major reason why they
survive as long as they do sometimes for thousands of years.
Mythology
The term "mythology" can refer either to the study of
myths or to a body or collection of myths. Mythology, stories
or explanations of the origin and meaning of the world and the universe and
their relation to a particular culture or civilization. Mythological stories differ from folk tales
and legends in that they tend to be integrated in the religious doctrine of a particular
culture or civilization and are considered sacked and factual. Mythological stories also contain supernatural
and divine elements. Folk tales and
legends, on the other hand, are more lighthearted, entertaining, and
fictive. Though mythological stories are
characteristic of the pre-scientific world many aspects and beliefs of the
modern world perpetuate the mythic tradition.
The
most well-known myths in western civilization are those of ancient Greece. The historic sources for our knowledge of
this mythology are the theogeny by Hesiod and the illaid and the odyssey by
homer. All three works date from the 8th
century B.C other significant mythological systems are Teutonic, or Norse,
mythology of Scandinavia and Germany.
The
sources for this mythology are the eddas.
The source for the Hindu mythology of Scandinavia and Germany. The source for the Hindu mythology of Asia
and India are the Vedas. The basis of
Irish Celtic mythology is three cycles of stories-the mythological cycle, the Ulster
cycle, and the Fenian cycle. Other
significant mythological systems are those of Africa, native America and the
pacific islands. Many theories have been
developed by scholars about how and why myths began. Some of the more significant theories are
those of euhemerism, the Greek scholar who believed that myths began. Some of the more significant theories are
those of wuhemerus, the Greek scholar who believed that myths are based on
historical fact; Friedrich Max Muller, a German scholar who held that mythic
heroes were representations of nature; Sir Edward burnet tylor, an English
anthropologist who stated that myths were an attempt to explain the
unexplainable events in dreams.
Folk lore
Folk lore, traditional beliefs,
customs, and superstitions of a culture, handed down informally in fables,
myths, legends, proverbs, riddles, songs, and ballads. Folklore studies were developed in the 1800s,
largely through collection and collation of material by the Grimm brothers in
germanh and folklore societies were set up in Europe and the United States. The
American folklore society was founded in 1888.
Folklore themes are echoed and paralleled among distinct and
isolated. One of the major studies of
this phenomenon is Sir James Frazer’s Golden bough (1890).
According to Barbro Klein, 'Folklore' has four basic meanings.
First, it denotes oral narration, rituals, crafts, and other forms of
vernacular expressive culture. Second, folklore, or ‘folkloristics,’ names an
academic discipline devoted to the study of such phenomena. Third, in everyday
usage, folklore sometimes describes colorful ‘folkloric’ phenomena linked to
the music, tourist, and fashion industries. Fourth, like myth, folklore can
mean falsehood.
According to Henry Glassie,"Folklore,” though coined as recently as
1846, is the old word, the parental concept to the adjective "folk.”
Customarily folklorists refer to the host of published definitions, add their
own, and then get on with their work, leaving the impression that definitions
of folklore are as numberless as insects. But all the definitions bring into
dynamic association the ideas of individual creativity and
collective order.
William A. Wilson says “Surely no other discipline is more
concerned with linking us to the cultural heritage from the past than is
folklore; no other discipline is more concerned with revealing the
interrelationships of different cultural expressions than is folklore; and no other
discipline is so concerned …with discovering what it is to be human. It is this
attempt to discover the basis of our common humanity, the imperatives of our
human existence, that puts folklore study at the very center of
humanistic study.”
Folklore
comprises the unrecorded traditions of a people; it includes both the form and
content of these traditions and their style or technique of communication from
person to person.
Folklore
is the traditional, unofficial, non-institutional part of culture. It encompasses
all knowledge, understandings, values, attitudes, assumptions, feelings, and
beliefs transmitted in traditional forms by word of mouth or by
customary examples.
Conclusion
The perspective varies from person to
person, country to country and culture to culture. The history, folk lore,
myth, mythology were briefly elaborated above which gives the basic meaning of
these terms and also how the great scholars coined these terms according to
their perspectives.
References
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Henry Glassie. The
Spirit of Folk Art. New York: Abrams, 1989.
Jan
Brunvand. The Study of
American Folklore: An Introduction, 2nd edition. New York: W.W.Norton, 1978.
Leonard,
S. & McClure, M. Myth &knowing: An introduction to world mythology,
Chapter 1. The McGraw-Hill Companies, Ney York. 2004.
Michael
D. Harkavy. The new websters international encyclopedia vol 4.Pp 498-499, Naples : Trident Press
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William A.
Wilson. The Deeper Necessity: Folklore and the Humanities. Journal of American Folklore101:400, 1988.
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