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Jun-2021

You will hear a recording. Click on the paragraph that best relates to the recording.

Historian

a) To understand the past you have to be able, as far as possible, to think as the people in the period you are studying thought. The example of what it must have been like to be a peasant in the Middle Ages is used. However, sensibilities change over time and we can’t completely throw off the mentality of the present. Therefore, every age will have a slightly different perspective on the same period of the past, no matter what the facts are.b) The text explains how, in order to understand people in the historical period they are studying, a historian must have the same ability the novelist has to get into the minds of characters. This is due to the fact that the world was different then, and the ways of thinking have changed, for example, between the Middle Ages and the 21s' century. He explains this by saying historian's sensibilities change over time.c) As a historian, if you really want to understand the sensibilities of those who lived in the past, you must be like a novelist and get into the skins of your characters and think and feel as they do. You are asked to imagine what it’s like to be a peasant in medieval times, asking the sort of questions a peasant might ask. What the writer is saying is that a historian needs imaginative sympathy with ordinary people in the past.

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