Don Quixote, Cervantes, pg. 505
'That's true,' Sanson replied, 'but it's one thing to write as a a poet and quite another to write as a historian: the poet can narrate or sing events not as they were but as they should have been, and the historian must record them not as they should have been but as they were, without adding anything to the truth or taking anything away from it.'
I thought this quote was really interesting and it made me think of a couple of things. This first clip is a song from the play Wicked and talks about history being the point of view of whoever is telling it. I think the historian and the poet are really one and the same. Sure, the poet can definitely add more embellishments and tweak things to tell a story as will be demonstrated in the second clip, but as the song below says (from 2:53-3:13) it's all in which label is able to persist. Could what we call the Crusaders actually be ruthless invaders? Absolutely, from one perspective they were great men, but from the other perspective they were ruthless invaders. Whoever is writing the history is choosing how it is going to be remembered.
Wicked
2:53-3:13
In the second clip from the movie Atonement Briony is telling her sister's final story. She tells the story as it happened and how a young girl (herself) perceived it and how the meaning of everything changed as she came to a greater understanding with age and then at a particular point in time she takes the liberty of a poet as Don Quixote calls it and tells the story as she thought it should have unfolded rather than the way it did. During the process the actual truth is told but another beautiful story unfolds.
Atonement
'That's true,' Sanson replied, 'but it's one thing to write as a a poet and quite another to write as a historian: the poet can narrate or sing events not as they were but as they should have been, and the historian must record them not as they should have been but as they were, without adding anything to the truth or taking anything away from it.'
I thought this quote was really interesting and it made me think of a couple of things. This first clip is a song from the play Wicked and talks about history being the point of view of whoever is telling it. I think the historian and the poet are really one and the same. Sure, the poet can definitely add more embellishments and tweak things to tell a story as will be demonstrated in the second clip, but as the song below says (from 2:53-3:13) it's all in which label is able to persist. Could what we call the Crusaders actually be ruthless invaders? Absolutely, from one perspective they were great men, but from the other perspective they were ruthless invaders. Whoever is writing the history is choosing how it is going to be remembered.
Wicked
2:53-3:13
In the second clip from the movie Atonement Briony is telling her sister's final story. She tells the story as it happened and how a young girl (herself) perceived it and how the meaning of everything changed as she came to a greater understanding with age and then at a particular point in time she takes the liberty of a poet as Don Quixote calls it and tells the story as she thought it should have unfolded rather than the way it did. During the process the actual truth is told but another beautiful story unfolds.
Atonement
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