History is a composition of past events. It is real and honest. However, the materials used by historians (which are called sources) to study history are only records of history, so they need not to be absolutely true and unbiased. If a group of scholars were to evaluate a set of clues surrounding a play, they would mainly use texts and written records of the play and all these evidences are considered sources which therefore need to be carefully examined before put into use. To these scholars, Postlewait and the editors of Theatre Histories (both thoroughly assessing the limitation of the historical sources and proper ways to apply them to theater histories in their books) might give advices regarding the method of historical analysis, the attitude toward theatrical text, and the consideration of the context of a play.
Firstly, Postlewait might advise an economic historian to use both the inductive and deductive modes of thinking in his or her historical research. Normally, an economic problem involves a number of quantitative calculations. So, an economic historian might also prefer to use data to analyze theater history. For example, he or she may be interested in a theater’s average ticket price, normal people’s yearly spending on the tickets, and other similar statistics. This data collecting method is called inductive modes of analysis. It seeks pattern from the accumulation of concrete evidence. However, a major obstacle is faced by this method – the scarcity of available data (Postlewait 53). Even if enough data could be collected, the application of it would be extremely limited. For instance, the ticket price collected at Shakespeare’s Globe Theater can be used to estimate the revenue of this one single theater. If the historian wants to know the revenue of another theater, he or she must collect the ticket price again at the targeted theater. Due to the limitation of the inductive analysis, Postlewait suggests historians to complement it with the deductive modes of thinking, which deduce the needed evidence from a parallel condition or context (Postlewait 53). For example, by adopting deductive reasoning, the economic historian in the previous case will use the ticket price collected at one theater to calculate the revenue of another similar theater, without knowing its actual ticket price. The flaw of deduction is the possible overgeneralization. Hence, in Postlewait’s opinion, only by using a combination of these two method could historians avoid both the scarcity of data and the false positive conclusion. Secondly, both Postlewait and the editors of Theatre Histories might warn a literary scholar not to completely rely on the text when analyzing the history of a play. Most of the time, a literary scholar searches for historical clues in written sources, such as the original script of a play, the director’s note book, the published text. Yet, reading these written sources may negatively affect his or her judgment. Such an example is given by Postlewait in his book, he said that there are two different editions of Shakespeare’s text of Hamlet and they differ from each other on the length and content. So, if a literary scholar wants to analyze these two versions of Hamlet, he or she will have no idea whether the cause of differencec was Shakespeare’s revision, cut down to fit shorter performance time, or unreliable reconstruction by a player (36). The editors of Theatre Histories also mention about the unreliability of the text and illustrate it with Mark Monmonier’s autobiography, How to Live with Maps, in which he avoids writing about all the unfavorable reviews given to him by critics (Zarrilli et al. xxvi). Thus, both Postlewait and the editors of Theatre Histories may urge a …show more content…
For example, when trying to explain the difference between the Ibsen’s and Mabou Mines’ production of doll house, a theater historian could simply look into the contexts of these two productions. In Ibsen’s social context, discussion of female equality was a serious topic, so he interpreted his play as a tragedy. However, in the contemporary context, feminism is common for and well accepted, so the contrast between docile females and dominant males becomes ironic or even comical today. The authors of Theater Histories have obviously realized the importance of context in a theater historical analysis, therefore they would advise a theater historian to pay attention to the context of a
Firstly, Postlewait might advise an economic historian to use both the inductive and deductive modes of thinking in his or her historical research. Normally, an economic problem involves a number of quantitative calculations. So, an economic historian might also prefer to use data to analyze theater history. For example, he or she may be interested in a theater’s average ticket price, normal people’s yearly spending on the tickets, and other similar statistics. This data collecting method is called inductive modes of analysis. It seeks pattern from the accumulation of concrete evidence. However, a major obstacle is faced by this method – the scarcity of available data (Postlewait 53). Even if enough data could be collected, the application of it would be extremely limited. For instance, the ticket price collected at Shakespeare’s Globe Theater can be used to estimate the revenue of this one single theater. If the historian wants to know the revenue of another theater, he or she must collect the ticket price again at the targeted theater. Due to the limitation of the inductive analysis, Postlewait suggests historians to complement it with the deductive modes of thinking, which deduce the needed evidence from a parallel condition or context (Postlewait 53). For example, by adopting deductive reasoning, the economic historian in the previous case will use the ticket price collected at one theater to calculate the revenue of another similar theater, without knowing its actual ticket price. The flaw of deduction is the possible overgeneralization. Hence, in Postlewait’s opinion, only by using a combination of these two method could historians avoid both the scarcity of data and the false positive conclusion. Secondly, both Postlewait and the editors of Theatre Histories might warn a literary scholar not to completely rely on the text when analyzing the history of a play. Most of the time, a literary scholar searches for historical clues in written sources, such as the original script of a play, the director’s note book, the published text. Yet, reading these written sources may negatively affect his or her judgment. Such an example is given by Postlewait in his book, he said that there are two different editions of Shakespeare’s text of Hamlet and they differ from each other on the length and content. So, if a literary scholar wants to analyze these two versions of Hamlet, he or she will have no idea whether the cause of differencec was Shakespeare’s revision, cut down to fit shorter performance time, or unreliable reconstruction by a player (36). The editors of Theatre Histories also mention about the unreliability of the text and illustrate it with Mark Monmonier’s autobiography, How to Live with Maps, in which he avoids writing about all the unfavorable reviews given to him by critics (Zarrilli et al. xxvi). Thus, both Postlewait and the editors of Theatre Histories may urge a …show more content…
For example, when trying to explain the difference between the Ibsen’s and Mabou Mines’ production of doll house, a theater historian could simply look into the contexts of these two productions. In Ibsen’s social context, discussion of female equality was a serious topic, so he interpreted his play as a tragedy. However, in the contemporary context, feminism is common for and well accepted, so the contrast between docile females and dominant males becomes ironic or even comical today. The authors of Theater Histories have obviously realized the importance of context in a theater historical analysis, therefore they would advise a theater historian to pay attention to the context of a