Assignment : 205 Cultural Studies

 Name – Janvi Nakum

Paper-  205 Cultural Studies

Roll no- 11

Enrollment no –4069206420210020

Email id – janvinakum360@gmail.com

Batch- 2021-2023(M.A. Sem – 3)

Topic : New Historicism

Submitted to – S.B. Gardi Department of English Maharaja Krishnkumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

Stephen Greenblatt

Stephen Jay Greenblatt was born in Boston in 1943. He graduated from Newton North High school, and was educated at Yale University. Greenblatt has mainly studied on Shakespeare, the Renaissance and the New Historicism. He has been the editor of the Norton Anthology of English Literature ,and also co-author of Practicing New Historicism. He has also works on travelling in Laos and China, story-telling and miracles. He has written a lot of books, and articles on new historicism. He is respected as an expert on Renaissance and Shakespeare fields. One of his most popular work is Will in the World.

What is New Historicism

As described, the new historicism theory evaluates literature through a comprehensive analysis of the social and cultural events that surround the event being described and so much more how these socio-cultural events help to build the event. In essence, new historicism aims at understanding intellectual history through literature and literature through the cultural context surrounding the historical event.

What is new historicism?

From the description of the new historicism theory, we can say that new historicism refers to the analysis of literature while taking a keen interest in the socio-cultural and historical events that are involved in building literary work as it assumes that every piece of literature is as a result of a historical event that created it.

New historicism basically takes into account that literary work or rather any literature work has time, place and thus a historical event as its key components and that these key elements can actually be deciphered from the literary text following keen analysis of the text even if these elements are not clearly depicted by a writer in his or her work.

New historicism deals with textuality of history, that is, the fact that history is built and fictionalized and the history of the literary text is without a doubt found within the socio-cultural and political conditions surrounding its conception and interpretation as stated by Louis Montrose.

New historicism despite its opposition to the ideas put forth by poststructuralism, it is basically similar to poststructuralist since it also defies the of a common human nature shared by the author, literary characters and readers and instead takes into account the view that these key players surrounding a text have diverse identities.

Some of the key assumptions of new historicism which were given by Harold Aram Veeser in “The New Historicism include:

Each act that is expressed is as a result of a network of material practices.

Every act of uncovering, analyzing and opposition actually uses ways that it condemns and hence may conform to that which it exposes.

Literary and non-literary texts circulate inseparably.

There is no social boundary whether imagined or archived that gives access to universally unalterable truths nor portrays the unchangeable nature of human.

An analytical or rather critical means and a language good enough to describe culture under capitalism participate in the economy is described.

Stephen Greenblatt & New Historicism

A critical approach developed in the 1980s in the writings of Stephen Greenblatt, New Historicism is characterized by a parallel reading of a text with its socio-cultural and historical conditions, which form the co-text. New Historians rejected the fundamental tenets of New Criticism (that the text is an autotelic artefact), and Liberal Humanism (that the text has timeless significance and universal value) . On the contrary, New Historicism, as Louis Montrose suggested, deals with the “textuality of history and the historicity of texts.” Textuality of history refers to the idea that history is constructed and fictionalised, and the historicity of text refers to its inevitable embedment within the socio-political conditions of its production and interpretation. Though it rejects many of the assumptions of poststructuralism, New Historicism is in a way poststructuralist in that it rejects the essential idea of a common human nature that is shared by the author, characters and readers; instead it believes that identity is plural and hybrid.

Michael Foucault & New Historicism 

Michael Foucault is a key figure in the new historicism. His interest in issues such as ideologies, power, epistemology and subjectivity have gone a long way in influencing critics not only in literal studies but also in other disciplines. His readiness to evaluate and openly discuss somewhat controversial disciplines such as medicine, criminology, sexuality and governance coupled with his questioning of the principle of specialization has led to other critics examining interdisciplinary connections even where the disciplines have never been taught to be connected and as a consequence never really examined together.

Foucault’s archeological concept of history as archive, informs yet another tendency of the New Historicists, in that they consider history as fictionalised and as a “co-text” while traditional historians consider history as facts and as the background to the text, which is the foreground. Foucault observes that history is characterised by gaps and fissures contemporary historicists highlight the discontinuities and conflicts of history, rather than write in a coherent manner. He does not, like traditional historians, write history as a unified, continuous story.

New Historicism & Shakespeare 

William Shakespeare’s work were core in bringing about new historicism as a new literature study tool. Stephen Orgel together with other new historicist critics pioneered the study of Shakespeare’s works were his plays were deemed inseparable from the context in which they were written. This, in turn, led to understanding Shakespeare less as a great author than as a way of reestablishing the cultural milieu renaissance theatre and the very complex political scenario of that time.

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.

What is Cultural Materialism?

The origin of cultural materialism can be traced back to work of the left-wing literary critic Raymond Williams, who coined the term cultural materialism. It can be described as a blending of leftist culturalism and Marxist analysis. This theory came into being in the early 1980s along with new historicism. Cultural materialism deals with specific historical documents and attempt to analyse and recreate the dominant set of ideals or beliefs of a particular moment in history.

What is the difference between New Historicism and Cultural Materialism?

Focus:

New Historicism focus on the oppressive aspects of society people has to overcome to achieve change.

Cultural Materialism focuses on how that change is formed.

Views:

New Historicists claim that they are aware of the difficulties, limitations, contradictions and problems of trying to establish the truth; nevertheless, they believe in the truth of their work.

Cultural Materialist sees new historicism as politically ineffective since it does not believe in absolute truth or knowledge. They feel that cultural materialists do not believe in the truth of what they write.

Political Situation:

New Historicists situate a text within the political situation of its contemporary society.

Cultural Materialists situate a text with the political situation of the critic’s contemporary world.

What new historicists do 

1. They juxtapose literary and non-literary texts, reading the former in the light of the latter. 

2. They try thereby to 'defamiliarize' the canonical literary text, detaching it from the accumulated weight of previous literary scholarship and seeing it as if new. 

3. They focus attention (within both text and co-text) on issues of State power and how it is maintained, on patriarchal structures and their perpetuation, and on the process of colonisation, with its accompanying 'mind-set'. 

4. They make use, in doing so, of aspects of the post-structuralist outlook, especially Derrida's notion that every facet of reality is textualised, and Foucault's idea of social structures as determined by dominant 'discursive practices'.

Stephen Greenblatt’s Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare (1980) does a New Historicist reading of Renaissance plays, reavealing how ‘self-fashioning was an episteme of the era, as depicted in the portraits and literature  of the time.

Advantages of New Historicism :

Written in a far more accessible way than post-structuralist theory. It presents its data and draws its conclusions in a less dense way. Material is often fascinating and distinctive. New territory(subject). Political edge is always sharp, avoids problems of straight Marxist criticism.

 Difference Between Old Historicism & New Historicism 

• While Old historicism follows a hierarchical approach by creating a historical framework and placing the literary text within it, 
• New Historicism, upholding the Derridean view that there is nothing outside the text, or that everything is available to us in “textual” or narrative form, breaks such hierarchies, and follows a parallel reading of literature and history, and looks at history as represented and recorded in literary texts. 
• In short, while Old Historicism is concerned with the “world” of the past, New Historicism deals with the “word” of the past.
• Foucault argues that old historians aimed at reconstituting the past by referring to documents about the past, and, appropriating facts and details such that the incoherent elements are concealed, and create a seemingly unified narrative of history, that complies with the discourse of the time and age. 
• On the contrary, new historicists, work on reference documents from within to understand the inherent fissures. This new approach serves the purpose of proliferation of discontinuities in the history of ideas, in the place of a continuous chronology of reason. This idea is corollary to Foucault’s understanding of knowledge as a manifestation of power: Thus, in a typical poststructuralist manner, new historicists foreground and take pride in discontinuities.

Words : 1561

Works Cited

Balkaya, Mehmet Akif. “Basic Principles of New Historicism in the Light of Stephen Greenblatt's Resonance and Wonder and Invisible Bullets.” Academia.edu, https://www.academia.edu/8073537/Basic_Principles_of_New_Historicism_in_the_Light_of_Stephen_Greenblatts_Resonance_and_Wonder_and_Invisible_Bullets. Accessed 6 November 2022.

“Difference Between New Historicism and Cultural Materialism | Compare the Difference Between Similar Terms.” DifferenceBetween.com, 2 November 2016, https://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-new-historicism-and-vs-cultural-materialism/. Accessed 6 November 2022.

MAMBROL, NASRULLAH. “New Historicism: A Brief Note – Literary Theory and Criticism.” Literary Theory and Criticism, 16 October 2016, https://literariness.org/2016/10/16/new-historicism-a-brief-note/. Accessed 6 November 2022.

MAMBROL, NASRULLAH. “New Historicism's Deviation from Old Historicism – Literary Theory and Criticism.” Literary Theory and Criticism, 20 October 2016, https://literariness.org/2016/10/20/new-historicisms-deviation-from-old-historicism/. Accessed 6 November 2022.

“What is New Historicism: Literature.” A Research Guide for Students, https://www.aresearchguide.com/new-historicism.html. Accessed 6 November 2022.