Overview of New Historicism

New Historicism is a literary critical movement, which first developed in the 1980s. The new historical approach
emphasizes the cultural context in which text is produced, rather than focusing exclusively on the formal structure
of the text itself. New Historicism posits that literary works are not singular or solitary forms, but, instead, a product
of different networks of socio-material practices. As such, literary works should be interpreted, not for their
universal themes or historical content, but for their meaning as objects embedded in a certain socio-historical
milieu. Thus, to understand a literary text, critics need to first understand the author's background and the cultural
context in which the work was produced.

Notable Figures
Stephen Greenblatt is credited with launching New Historicism. He first used the term 'new historicism' in his
work, The Power of Forms in the English Renaissance (1982) to describe the permeability of literature and history.
Discussing Queen Elizabeth's hostility towards Shakespeare's play, Richard II, Greenblatt argues that literary
criticism is always historical in nature and that there is no such thing as pure aesthetic value. Fredric Jameson is
another well-known New Historicist. Jameson is famous for his dictate--'always historicize'-- commanding literary
critics to pay attention to the social and historical context in which a work was produced. Another noteworthy New
Historicist is Alan Liu.

Relationship to Other Movements

New Historicism is related to Cultural Studies, which is a broader movement in the humanities and social
sciences. Cultural Studies emphasizes that individual experience is culturally specific, rather than universal. Both
New Historicism and Cultural Studies are indebted to the work of French philosopher Michel Foucault, who argued
that knowledge (discourse) is a product of a vast network of systems that can be defined as much by ruptures as
by cohesive themes. New Historicism also reflects the legacy of Marxist criticism, since it seeks to unveil the
ideological conditions that shape a given text.
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New Historicism

Historical Criticism insisted that to understand a literary piece, we need to understand the author's
biography and social background, ideas circulating at the time, and the cultural milieu. This school
of criticism fell into disfavor as the New Critics emerged.

New Historicism seeks to find meaning in a text by considering the work within the framework of
the prevailing ideas and assumptions of its historical era. New Historicists concern themselves with
the political function of literature and with the concept of power, the intricate means by which
cultures produce and reproduce themselves. These critics focus on revealing the historically
specific model of truth and authority (not a "truth" but a "cultural construct") reflected in a given
work.

In other words, history here is not a mere chronicle of facts and events, but rather a complex
description of human reality and evolution of preconceived notions. Literary works may or may not
tell us about various factual aspects of the world from which they emerge, but they will tell us
about prevailing ways of thinking at the time: ideas of social organization, prejudices, taboos, etc.
They raise questions of interest to anthropologists and sociologists.

New Historicism is more "sociohistorical" than it is a delving into factoids: concerned with
ideological products or cultural constructs which are formations of any era. (It's not just where
would Keats have seen a Grecian urn in England, but from where he may have absorbed the
definitions of art and beauty.)
So, New Historicists, insisting that ideology manifests itself in literary productions and discourse,
interest themselves in the interpretive constructions which the members of a society or culture
apply to their experience.

What is New Historicism?

New Historicism is a literary theory based on the idea that literature should be studied and intrepreted within the
context of both the history of the author and the history of the critic. Based on the literary criticism of Stephen
Greenblatt and influenced by the philosophy of Michel Foucault, New Historicism acknowledges not only that a
work of literature is influenced by its author's times and circumstances, but that the critic's response to that work
is also influenced by his environment, beliefs, and prejudices.

A New Historicist looks at literature in a wider historical context, examining both how the writer's times
affected the work and how the work reflects the writer's times, in turn recognizing that current cultural
contexts color that critic's conclusions.

For example, when studying Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice,one always comes to the question of
whether the play shows Shakespeare to be anti-Semitic. The New Historicist recognizes that this isn't
a simple yes-or-no answer that can be teased out by studying the text. This work must be judged in
the context in which it was written; in turn, cultural history can be revealed by studying the work —
especially, say New Historicists, by studying the use and dispersion of power and the marginalization
of social classes within the work. Studying the history reveals more about the text; studying the text
reveals more about the history.

The New Historicist also acknowledges that his examination of literature is "tainted" by his own
culture and environment. The very fact that we ask whether Shakespeare was anti-Semitic — a
question that wouldn't have been considered important a century ago — reveals how our study of
Shakespeare is affected by our civilization.

New Historicism, then, underscores the impermanence of literary criticism. Current literary criticism is
affected by and reveals the beliefs of our times in the same way that literature reflects and is reflected
by its own historical contexts. New Historicism acknowledges and embraces the idea that, as times
change, so will our understanding of great literature.