ABSTRACT
How else can any past which by denition comprises events, processes, structures and so forth which are no longer perceivable, be represented . . . except in an imaginary way?
(White, 1987, p. 57)
is chapter will focus on the ways in which historical images form and are formed by myth and story, ction and literature. Signicant events, those which many agree are important to the story of a nation or people, may themselves be shaped and reshaped by later storywriters who capitalize on popular interests and whose images are so widely accepted that these actually replace reality. A mythic image may inuence reality by changing the way we think, speak, write, and paint a person or an event. In some cases,
the players in the events inuence how they are seen by others for economic, social, and political purposes to the point where individuals’ “invented” selves replace their original “historical” selves. On occasion, the individuals may forget who and what they were in favor of their reconstructed images.
