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    A short reading and introduction to historical culture and its topics.

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    A short reading and introduction to historical culture and its topics.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
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    Download as pdf
    97 views12 pages

    New Historicism and Cultural Criticism

    Uploaded by

    Joseph Ekpo
    A short reading and introduction to historical culture and its topics.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    276 Carricat Taxony Topay Crowley, Sharon. A Teacher’ Introduction ro Deconstrcton. Urbana llinois: NCTE, 989, Year College Introduct college ory (Criticism: An Advanced Introduction. New York try Guide to Post Structuraism and Postmodernism. 1989, Sarup, Mandan, An In ‘Athens: U of Get Category Il Abel, lizabet. Writing and Sexual Difference, Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1982 Barthes, Roland. SZ, 1970, Trans. Richard Mill. New Yor: Hill and Wang, 1975 Bloot, Harold, eal. Deconstruction and Critic. New York Seabury, 1979 of Criticism and the Sciences of Man. Eds Richard Macksey and Eugenio Donato. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1970, 247-65, Gasché, Rodolphe. The Tn of the Mirror: Derrida anid the Philsophy of Reflection. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard UP, 1976. CHAPTER 9 New Historical and Cultural Criticism CCrrricat Turony Topsy 278 differences that do exist between new and in order to fully appreciate the eer otoridom and eufarl eis, we wil begin by s ly. And because new! lad ae 1 peemises more thoroughly than have cultural ei retical premise hi yu have a fairly clear idea of the new caer alte eer tose the mye in which cleric New Historicism Most of us raised to think about history in the tr onary War battle we pin 14 an sf we te antag at lB th act rsbate tll us about the'spirit of the agen whic itself would nes, tracts, governme! represented (in newspapers, magazines, tr ae Ameri rw speeches, drawings, and pesto Te agit documents, stories, speeches, can countries), and what do these jes or by Britain (or by Europeat ion shaped and aa esas about bow dhe American Revolution shaped representation: ee s shaped by the cultures that rep ‘onal historians and by “Aenea nnd ei now hoi re quite reno hats eeu these istory is a series of events that have cased event Bs near, causal tltionship: event A caus Saad ok Dae they te wear ey abe on jective analysis, of uncovering the facts about vent thse sine hep of re Myce held bythe cure to which those fal refer Inde home of 3 wee lar eaitonal Mitral accounts have offered Key ee eens eclan the worldview of gen historia population, that would explain (Crarren 9: New Hisromcat axp Cuttural Ceci 279 as the Renaissance notion of the Great Chain of Being—the cosmic hier- archy of creation, with God at the top of the ladder, human beings at the ures at the bottom—which has been used to middle, and the lovliest creat aspect of tudy past events in terms he Age of Reason or the Age of Enlighten. ature classes that study literary works in ‘ods, such as the Neoclassical, Romantic, or Mod. rians generally believe that history sis improving over the course of al, and technological accomplish- ie human spe; time, advancing in its moral, cultur ments New historicists in contrast, don't believe but the most basic facts of history. We can kn that George t Napoleon was de- standing of what such facts mean, of web of competing ideologies and con- and cultural agendas of the time and place in strictly a matter of interpreta- cll From this perspective, there is no such ts there is only interpretation. Furthermore, fiw histriists argue that reliable interpretations are, for a nuns of reasons, difficult to produce. ‘The first and most important reason for this ficulty, new i sibility of objective analysis. Like all human be. ina particular time and place, and thei current and past events are influenced conscious ways by their own expy rians may believe right and wrong, what is civilized and unci unimportant, and the interpret events. For examp sive is based on the bel “pean cultures. As a result, ancient cultures with highly developed art Cnrricat Tixony Tovar 280 reson fhe di ti mplexity. For new historicist terpreta- ory cannot be ‘what constitutes hes: And any to historias may gree out what consttes ra fortes ters are mater of fini, That Pay ian an nay pede sv ancy proving trea is, history isn't an orderly prot Ss vidual and groups of people may have goals, but 7 ne ies no rt se complex, and difficult to anal ranty tn ad rk ipl sen ace Son, caitalj WOC 4 one woy set fom case To eC, Any fio lity is not a one-way st that culture in ret ion of an ything from the creat otk the persistence of or change in the co productof our own and its cultural mi e proper question i, “What ae and social formations—such as ight and action within a network of cultural limitations while it siom thought and action wit (Crirree 9: New Histoncat ayo Currunay Ceci 2a taneously enables individuals to think and ac. Iclong process of negotiating our way, con ‘among the constraints and freedoms offer, by the society in which we lve, Thus, according to new historicists, from the top of the political and so. French philosopher Michel Fouca Our subjectivity, then, is a sciously and unconsciously, 4, at any given moment in time, Power does not emanate only nomic structure, According to Whose ideas have strongly influ- icism, power circulates in all direc. ‘And the vehicle by which tion of exchange: (1) the ex- practices as buying and selling, bartering, gambling, taxation, charity and varioeg forms of theft; (2) the exchange of people through such institutions as marriage, adoption, kid- Gio sttver: and (3) the exchange of idea through rhe various discourses a culture produces, A discourse isa social language created » and the book, you will become fas icism, Marxist criticism, femi- word discourse has roughly the and the two terms are often tsed draws attention to the role of lan- He sm, and so on. Although the same meaning as the word ideology, interchangeably, the word discourse '1age as the vehicle of ideology. From a new Ristorical Petspective, no discourse, by itself, can ad- cultural dynamics of social power. For there ied, universal) spirit ofan age, and there is no i explanation that provides a given culture). There i t0 use new historical any number of ways at nurse is permanent. Dis- Dut they also stimulate opposi- ‘new historicists believe thatthe ‘and society is mutually constinu- ever merely victims of an oppres- ‘one reason why dual identity He:on the whole, human beings are n 292 Carica Tr#ony Topar sive society, various ways to oppose authority in their ricism, even the dictator of a small country doesn't wield absolute power on his own. To maintain dominance, his power mi in numerous di (which can promote the popular- as we saw when Nehru jackets copied the style of First Lady the law (which can make it a and so on, ‘and “normal” are ity of leaders by promoting copycat ‘were popular and whe Jacqueline Kenned} treasonous offense has suggested that all defi- version” are social constructs '§ Powers maintain their control. We accept only because they are s ons of social and anti-social behavior promote the s0 do particular versions of his washing of General Custer’s now-infa- against Native Americans served the desire of the is day to obliterate Native American cize their lands, And that same te American power structure for ime, for even those who had knowledge of wise to air America’s dirty historical laun- of Americans. Analogously had the Nazis won World War bbe reading a very different account of the war, and of the genocide of millions of Jews, than the accounts we read in American his- tory books today. Thus, new historicism views historical accounts as narra- historians are oftheir biases—that i, the more “objective” they think they are—the more those biases are able to contol their narratives. So fat, we've seen ne sm's claims about what historical analysis cannot do, Historical analysis (1) cannot be objective, (2) cannot (Charten 9: New HisToncal aso Corrusat Cerne 283 adequately demonstrate that a particular sprit ofthe times or worldview accounts for the complexities of any given culture, and (3) cannot ad. equately demonstrate that history is linear, cat can’t understand a histor web of discourses in whi ry stand itin isolation from the meanings Wwe isolate it, the more we

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