Historical analysis of texts

1. HISTORICAL
CRITICISMS
Presented by:
Ronn Joseph J. del Rio, LPT

2. Definition
◦ It is also known as the historical-critical method, Historical criticism is a branch
of criticism that investigates the origin of text or source in order to understand
the word behind the text.
◦ The primary goal of historical criticism is to discover the text primitive or original
historical context and its literal sense. The secondary goal seeks establish a
reconstruction of historical situation of the author and recipients of the text.

3. Definition
◦ Moreover, in order for source to be used as evidence in history, basic matters
about its form and context must be settled.
◦ These are two types of historical criticism namely: external criticism (investigates
the documents form) and internal criticism (investigates the content of the
documents).

4. Additional Goal of Historical Criticism
◦ Historical criticism seeks greater understanding of the texts by analyzing the
historical and social contexts in which they developed.
◦ The goal of historical criticism, traditionally, has been to try to understand the
text’s meaning in its original context and to answer questions about the text, such
as:

5. Additional Goal of Historical Criticism
◦ Who wrote it? When was it written? What else what happening at the time of its
writing? How did it come to be in the form we have it today? What did it mean to
the people who first read or heard it?
◦ Historical criticism has also often sought answers to the ever-elusive question of
what is called “authorial intent”: What did the author intend for this text to mean
in his or her time and place?

6. Test of Authenticity
◦ This type of criticism looks for the obvious sign of forgery or misrepresentation.
◦ This type of criticism tests the authenticity of the sources. It is interested in the
writing styles of the eyewitness and his ignorance of the facts.
◦ The historian also analyzes the original manuscript; its integrity, localization and
the date it was written.

7. Test of Authenticity
◦ The first step to test a source is to determine the date of document to see
whether it is anachronistic. Anachronism means out of time or order, something
that could not have been there at that particular time.
◦ It could be a person, thing or idea placed in a wrong time. Being able to spot
anachronism is important because it helps us test the reliability of a source.

8. Test of Authenticity
◦ If a source is unreliable then we probably should not use it .Example can be
found in Rizal’s allegedly first poem “ Sa Aking Mga Kabata” where we could find
the word “kalayaan”.
◦ Rizal admitted that he first encountered the word though a Marcelo H. Del Pilar’s
translation of Rizal’s essay “ El Amor Patrio”. Rizal wrote this essay in 1882 while
the poem supposedly was written by him in the year 1869.

9. Test of Authenticity
◦ The second step is to determine the author’s handwriting, signature or seal. We
can compare the handwriting of particular author to his other writings.
◦ Obvious sign of forgery in include patch writing, hesitation as revealed by ink
blobs, pauses in the writing, tremor causing poor line quality and erasures.

10. Test of Authenticity
◦ However, some people are highly skilled in imitating others handwriting. Even a
skilled forger can be caught because the act of writing is a skill is learned through
repetition until it becomes a habit.
◦ Thus, there is natural variation in everyone handwriting. In addition, no one can
duplicate all of the intricate subconscious writing habits of another in an
extended writing sample. Example of this is the handwriting in the alleged
retraction letter of Jose Rizal.

11. Test of Authenticity
◦ The third test in determining the authenticity of the source is by looking for the
anachronistic style. In this test we will examine idiomatic expression or the
orthography used in the documents.
◦ An idiom is an expression, word or phrase that has a figurative meaning
conventionally understood by native speakers. When we say ‘break a leg’ we all
know that it means good luck. Orthography is a set of conventions for writing a
language.

12. Test of Authenticity
◦ It includes norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis
and punctuation. When the poem Sa Aking Mga Kabata was allegedly written in
1869, most Philippine language was widely written in a variety of ways based on
Spanish Orthography:

13. Test of Authenticity
◦Early Tagalog System
Ama namin, nasa Lan͠gitca,
Ypasamba Mo ang N͠galanmo.
Mouisaamin ang pagcaharimo.
Ypasonor mo ang loob mo
Dito sa lupa para sa Lan͠git.

14. Test of Authenticity
◦Modern Filipino orthography
Ama namin, sumasalangit Ka,
Sambahín ang Ngalan Mo.
Mapasaamin ang kaharián Mo.
Sundín ang loób Mo
Dito sa lupà, para nang sa langit.

15. Test of Authenticity
◦ The fourth test is the anachronistic reference to events. For example if the event
cited in the document is prior to the actual event, then the document must be
forge or fake.
◦ The fifth test of authenticity is the provenance or custody of the document.
Provenance is the place of origin of earliest known history of documents. It
traces the roots of any source.

16. Test of Authenticity
◦ The other two test of authenticity is the semantics and hermeneutics. Semantics is
the linguistic study of meaning. In this test semantics determine the meaning of
the text and words of the source.
◦ We may ask: is the meaning of the statements different from its literal meaning?
Hermeneutics on the other hand is theory and methodology of interpretation.

17. Test of Authenticity
◦ Hermeneutics is more than interpretation or method used when immediate
comprehension fails.
◦ In historical criticism we determine ambiguities which are a word or expression
that can be understood in two or more possible ways. Historians may look also if
the statement is meant to be ironic (i.e. mean other than what it says).

18. Internal Criticism
◦ This type of criticism looks for deeper or more intense study of sources. Usually
historians first apply external criticism before undergoing the test of credibility
because of internal criticisms implicit character.
◦ It is important that the document must be verisimilar or as close as what really
happened from a critical examination of best available resources.

19. Internal Criticism
◦ It refers to the accuracy of the content of a document. Internal criticism has to
do with what the document says.
◦ It investigates the content or substance of a document and the author’s point of
view. This type of criticism tests the credibility of the source.

20. Test of Credibility
◦ The first step is the identification of the author. It determines if the witness is reliable or
if he is consistent by comparing his other works.
◦ In this steps historian also examine the mental processes of the witness, if he is capable
of telling the truth, or if he is mentally challenge.
◦ Finally we will look for his personal attitudes, if he is telling something beyond what he
saw or bragging about it. Many historian use some kind of rubric to test the credibility of
the author.

21. Test of Credibility
◦ The second step in testing the credibility of the eyewitness is to determine the
approximate date. Example of this is again Rizal’s poem “Sa aking mga kabata”.
◦ He wrote that poem when he is only eight years old and that poem is with rhythm
and meter. To think that when Rizal was 8 years old the primary education in the
Philippines was nonexistent.

22. Test of Credibility
◦ The third step in testing the credibility of the source is its ability to tell the truth.
Historians examine how near an eyewitness is to the event.
◦ The closer a source is to the event which it purports to describe, the more one
can trust it to give an accurate historical description of what actually happened
Historian also look for the competence of the eyewitness.

23. Test of Credibility
◦ Basically they look for the background of the author like education, health, age or
social status.
◦ The last test for this step is the degree of the attention of the eyewitness.
Whether the sources witness the event only partly or if he witnesses the event
from the start to finish.

24. Test of Credibility
◦ The fourth step is the willingness to tell the truth. If the eyewitness is coerced,
forced or somebody threaten him to tell something then his account is not valid.
If the eyewitness wants to hide something for personal reason.
◦ The last step is to look for corroboration. This particular step rest upon the
independent testimony of two or more reliable sources.

25. Test of Credibility
◦ The words independent testimony must be emphasize. For instance, if the soldier
who fought the battle, a general who oversaw the battle and a doctor who treated
those wounded who fought the battle, all recorded the same fact or all agree
about an event, historians consider that event proven.