Postmodernist historical hermeneutics argues that the meaning of history is completely given by the historians. This argument is untenable because history has endowed itself with an “original meaning”, which is not given by the historians but by the creators of history. Hayden White and his Metahistory are the true and typical representation of the theory because it is in this book that White not only totally placed “the generating system”of the meaning of history, namely, the illustration on giving history the meaning within the framework of “historical writing relating to the question of interpretations”but also created“Poetics of History ”as his theoretic foundation. We find that although the core of “Poetics of History”is called “ the Theory of Tropology”, the “troping” is eventually achieved through “metaphor”. Hence, it reveals the tendency of transcendental idealism in historical hermeneutics as well as the entire “Poetics of History”since according to F. R. Ankersmit, “Transcendental philosophy is intrinsically metaphorical, and metaphor intrinsically transcendental”. Both of them are intrinsically connected in nature.

postmodernist history； historical hermeneutics； Hayden White； Metahistory； “Poetics of History”； transcendental philosophy； metaphor； F. R. Ankersmit