The Anecdotal: Truth in Detail

Different historical dictionaries note that the term “anecdote” was established in literature during the 7^th century by the Byzantine writer Procopius of Caesarea, but did not gain full acceptance as a term and as a genre until the 17^th century. The word literally designates what is new: a fact or detail that was unknown to the public and had not been disclosed by official history (this was the meaning given by the Dictionnaire de l’Académie Française in its 1762 version). The term anecdote soon became synonymous with little story. Hence the question: is there a place for small stories within the larger and more noble or tragic narrative of history itself, which is presumed to be full of meaning?

But doesn’t history not only as social reality—actual becoming— but also as discipline necessarily imply the great narrative as a form? We will have to consider this question. It has been said that great narratives belong to an outdated form of representation.¹ Why? To be able to answer this question will also amount to being able to consider the question of the anecdote from an entirely different perspective. But before coming to these crucial questions, we must reconsider the question of the narrative genres involved. Great narratives may belong to different types, for instance the epic, novel, or historical narrative. From this perspective the anecdote belongs among the very short narrative genres, which include little stories, fabliaux, riddles, and jokes, even though it cannot be identified with any of these. They are even shorter than tales or short stories. In fact, the anecdote seems to belong to a truly minor genre. It involves what is circumstantial, trivial, unimportant, and even—if one can say so—what is left to the scrapheap of history.

However, the anecdote is set apart by a remarkable feature: the short narrative of which it is composed has to do with real-world events. This is what takes it out of the realm of fiction (unlike the fable or parable) into that of history. It therefore belongs to the category of what is verifiable. An anecdote is always given as reporting something that actually happened. Therefore, while it does not have the solemn status of history, it nevertheless stands out because of another feature: it relates something interesting, original, odd, or even exemplary.

What of the anecdotal, from this perspective? The answer seems obvious: it constitutes the very content of the anecdote as a form. It points out its object. Since the anecdote refers to verifiable events, the anecdotal designates the referent of the narrative. However, just like the anecdote—considered as a genre—the anecdotal—considered as fact— appears to be a notion with an ambiguous status. First, the term can designate what is secondary and lacking in merit or value beyond mere entertainment (as in the phrase, “this is merely anecdotal”). But the flip side is that the term also designates what stands out of the sequence of facts and deserves at least a narrative—even a short one. Better yet, this term designates something that possesses original value. Hence the use of these everyday phrases to designate the anecdotal—“a small but meaningful fact” or “a revealing detail.” We have reached the core of the issue. The anecdotal seems capable of communicating to us something that great narratives miss because they are too general and distant to grasp it. It points out what emerges from the events because of its odd, surprising, and sometimes disturbing character. Precisely in doing so, it reveals what had not been perceived or what we had been unwilling to perceive. From the outset, the anecdotal therefore stands out through its dual relationship to the question of truth: 1) truth as it relates to what is verifiable, since the anecdotal does not come under fiction but under fact; and 2) truth understood as a revelation of what was concealed and a manifestation of something beyond mere appearance.

These last remarks, complementing the previous ones, should be sufficient to point out the directions of a research...