Et facta est lux. Convergences and Tensions in the Use of Language in Walter Benjamin and the Narrativist Historiographical Positions of the Mid-Twentieth Century

Abstract

The past appears as a complex field filled with interpretations and meanings that compel us to analyze its forms and approaches. This article proposes a rereading of the source text On Language as Such and on the Language of Man (2008 [1916]) by the German philosopher Walter Benjamin, in order to examine the uses and functions he attributes to language and, at the same time, to compare his fundamental notions with the theoretical and historiographical elaborations of narrativism.

The starting point is a shared critique of historiographical positivism, emphasizing that history cannot be presented as a neutral reflection of facts but rather as a discursive construction shaped by narrative forms, rhetorical decisions, and cultural frameworks. Narrativism, represented by authors such as Hayden White, Frank Ankersmit, and Paul Ricoeur, argues that historical narratives possess aesthetic and rhetorical dimensions that bring them closer to literature, thus questioning the supposed objectivity of the historian’s craft. The convergences and tensions between both perspectives make it possible to rethink the relationship between language, past, and present through unconventional approaches, enabling new readings of the historical discipline and its object of study.