History, catastrophe, rhapsody: the wreck of the Syria

Mishra, Sudesh R. (2025) History, catastrophe, rhapsody: the wreck of the Syria. Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, NA . NA. ISSN 1369-801X

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Abstract

Orthodox history is driven by a concern to capture the contending calculative strains that render an event significant in terms of the present’s assessment of the recorded past. This concern, however, seems to be less compelling whenever history is summoned to account for events that bear about them an aura of high tragedy. The historical accounting is then accomplished in an ethical, deontological, epical, dramatic and sacrificial register at the expense of the usual material calculations. Historical actors are evaluated in terms of their valiant suspension of calculative self-interest or, conversely, according to their censurable non-observance of this same act of suspension. It is at this point that history deploys what might be described as a rhapsodic and didactic yardstick in its attempt to take stock of the acts and intentions of the various actors participating at the scene of the catastrophic event. Rhapsody, in its classical Greek rendition, pertains to the recitation of an epic narrative where the stylistic register is actional, heroic, affective as well as ethically unequivocal. This essay contends that when accounting for catastrophic events, such as the wreck of the sailing ship Syria on May 11, 1884, historians take their cue from the archive’s dramatic strands and epical strains. In short, they reproduce the epical register, thereby staging history as a sub-genre of rhapsody. Doubtless there is a literary underside to all acts of history, but it is smothered over by stylistic and generic ruses. Catastrophic events bring to the fore exactly this literariness by tracing history’s genealogy back to the genre of the epic.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Additional Information:	Published Online
Subjects:	C Auxiliary Sciences of History > C Auxiliary sciences of history (General) C Auxiliary Sciences of History > CS Genealogy
Divisions:	School of Pacific Arts, Communication and Education (SPACE)
Depositing User:	Ms Shalni Sanjana
Date Deposited:	29 Jun 2025 21:47
Last Modified:	29 Jun 2025 21:47
URI:	https://repository.usp.ac.fj/id/eprint/15049

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