Practice question · Match the pairs
Match each of White’s emplotments to the shape it imposes.
- Romance
- Tragedy
- Comedy
- Satire
- Conflict resolved and order restored
- The hero transcends the world; triumph and redemption
- A fall, with hard knowledge gained
- No transcendence; the world wins
Hints
- Each shape imposes a different arc on the same events.
- One ends in restoration, another in irreversible loss.
Show the answer
- Romance → The hero transcends the world; triumph and redemption
- Tragedy → A fall, with hard knowledge gained
- Comedy → Conflict resolved and order restored
- Satire → No transcendence; the world wins
Why
Four literary shapes, and a historian reaching for one of them before the first footnote is written. White’s claim is that the reaching is usually unconscious.
Practise Postmodernism and the Linguistic Turn
The app has 4 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. History I is free to start.
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