HISTORICAL CRITICISM

HISTORICAL CRITICISM

Historical sources may not be what is looks from outside so the data must be subjected to careful analysis to sift the true from the false, irrelevant, ormisleading. In historical studies doubt is the beginning of wisdom. A remains may not be genuine a record may not be correct, a photographmay be takes, a speechmay have been written by a goose writer. Hence the historical materials must be vigorously evaluated. Such evaluations are made by applying two types of criticism, external and internal.

i) External Criticism

External criticism determines the form of the material. In this step we ask whether a given artifact or document is really a source of evidence about the past. This phase of evaluation establishes the authenticity or genuineness of the source. In other words, the investigator must save himself from being the victim of fraud. So the purpose of external criticism is to establish the historical truth. To analyse the authenticity and origination of source materials, the investigator must examine the signature, hand writing, script, type, spelling language usage, documentation, knowledge available at the time etc. Therefore the historical investigator must seek help from the auxiliary field such as chemistry, Anthropology, Archeology, Art, literatures, law pathology and various ancient and modern languages. To establish the authenticity or genuineness, the scholar has to seek answers to a number of questions.

I.                 Who is the author?

II.             Was the document written by a goose writers?

III.        What were the qualifications of author?

IV.         Is a particular item of equipment, piece of apparatus or other professional anti-fact authentic?

ii) Internal criticism

After the authenticity or genuineness of historical document or relics has been established, the next step is to establish the validity of its contents or to determine the accuracy, meaning and value of the statements, made. This process is known as internal criticism. The documents may be genuine in its authorship, but it may not reveal a true picture of a person, time or event under investigation. For example, frequent copying on the original documents may deviate from the originals, moreover, translation of the same documents from one language to another, or earlier to current usage, may have resulted in distortion in meaning, sometimes the author might have worked under far, pressure or vanity. The validity of the historical documents depends upon the integrity and competence of its author and circumstances under which it was written. A number of question will serve to clarify this form of criticism.

1)Is the meaning of the words same?

2)Is the author writing seriously?

3) Is the author expressing his real beliefs?

4)How soon after the event was the document written?

5) Was the author biased in any way?

  6) Are written sources evaluated with an understanding of the times and conditions under which they were produce ?.