how to write a new historicist essay

For the new architectural movement, see Neo-Historism. New Historicism is a school of literary theory which first developed in the 1980s, primarily through the work of the critic and Harvard English Professor Stephen Greenblatt, and gained widespread influence in the 1990s.[1] New Historicists aim simultaneously to understand the work through its cultural context and to understand intellectual history through literature, which follows the 1950s discipline of history of Ideas and refers to itself as a form of Cultural Poetics. H. Aram Veeser, introducing an anthology of essays, The New Historicism (1989),[2] noted some key assumptions that continually reappear in New Historicism; they are: that every expressive act is embedded in a network of material practices; that every act of unmasking, critique and opposition uses the tools it condemns and risks falling prey to the practice it exposes; that literary and non-literary texts circulate inseparably; that no discourse, imaginative or archival, gives access to unchanging truths, nor expresses inalterable human nature [ ] that a critical method and a language adequate to describe culture under capitalism participate in the economy they describe. — H. Aram Veeser, The New Historicism Contents 1 The study 2 Pre-history 3 Foucauldian basis 4 Criticism 5 See also 6 References 7 Further reading 8 External links The study[edit] Sub-literary texts and uninspired non-literary texts all came to be read as documents of historical discourse, side-by-side with the great works of literature. A typical focus of New Historicist critics, led by Stephen Orgel, has been on understanding Shakespeare less as an autonomous great author in the modern sense than as a means of reconstructing the cultural milieu Renaissance theatre—a collaborative and largely anonymous free-for-all—and the complex social politics of the time.[3] In this sense.
Jennifer F. and Mike M., Writing Center tutors Please keep in mind that these are only general guidelines; always defer to your professor's specifications for a given assignment. If you have any questions about the content represented here, please contact the Writing Centers so that we can address them for you. Introduction At some point in the academic career of most students, they will be asked to write an in-depth analysis of a literary work. While analyzing literary prose differs in some respects from analyzing poetry, there are many similarities. In both instances, the work’s text may be relied on to provide support to whatever the student is working to prove. But there are many other ways of thinking about literature, some of which will be focus on textual elements alone, and others which will focus on other important aspects such as the historical context, gender, and socio-economic factors. But before these ways of reading are clarified, a few words about the literary essay and some terminology will be provided. Textual elements will, of course, differ from work to work. In a poem, the text might be written in a traditional form such as a sonnet or a villanelle—these formal elements often provide insight into a work’s meaning. In a short story or novel, on the other hand, it might be plot or setting that provides the greatest amount of insight. But like other types of essay writing, essays about literature are formed around a thesis. Components of a Literary Analysis The Thesis When forming a thesis about either a story or a poem, it is important to avoid what is general or readily apparent and seek out something more specific, but still possible to back up with textual support. It is also essential to have a degree of familiarity with the work, and toward this end, it might be helpful for the student to mark relevant passages in the text, or keep note of.
Gallagher, Catherine, and Stephen Greenblatt. Practicing New Historicism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. A clearly written work that focuses its examination on five central New Historicist themes: the “recurrent use of anecdotes, preoccupation with the nature of representations, fascination with the history of the body, sharp focus on neglected details, and skeptical analysis of ideology.” Greenblatt, Stephen. The Greenblatt Reader. Edited by Michael Payne. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2005. This reader gathers Greenblatt’s most important New Historicist writings, including his works about “culture, Renaissance studies, and Shakespeare.” Also includes essays on storytelling and miracles. Counters assertions that New Historicism fails to embrace ideas of literary and aesthetic value. Laden, Sonja. “Recuperating the Archive: Anecdotal Evidence and Questions of ’Historical Realism.’” Poetics Today 25, no. 1 (Spring, 2004): 1-28. Examines the role of anecdotal evidence in New Historicist writing. Explores connections between literary artifacts, literary scholarship, and historical discourse within New Historicist practices. Lynn, Steven. “Connecting the Text: Biographical, Historical, and New Historical Criticism.” In Texts and Contexts: Writing About Literature with Critical Theory. 5th ed. New York: Pearson Longman, 2008. Delineates assumptions and strategies associated with New Historical practices in literary criticism. Provides examples as well. Robson, Mark. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: Routledge, 2008. A biographical study of New Historicism’s early practitioner, Stephen Greenblatt. Examines his foundational works as well as key concepts in the practice, including context, cultural poetics, power and subversion, thick description, and the anecdote. Ryan, Michael. “History.” In Literary Theory: A Practical Introduction. 2d ed. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell.
New historicism is based on parallel readings of literary and non-literary texts of the same historical period. It emerged as a mode of literary criticism in North America in the late 1970s and 1980s with an early focus on Renaissance studies. It is less a theory and more a way of reading or textual practice according to the movement’s leading thinker, Stephen Greenblatt.  Greenblatt famously outlined a new historicist mission to ‘speak with the dead’ in his work Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare (1980). He and other critics like Louis Montrose, Jonathan Dollimore, Catherine Gallagher, and D. M. Miller looked for patterns of power and subversion evident within literature and interrelated historical texts. New historicists reacted against earlier theorists who isolated works of literature from their historical context for a pure concentration on the ‘words on the page’. New historicists argue that works of literature do not independently transcend their time, as the New Criticism claimed, but are instead always socially and politically implicated within their historical context. The movement therefore promoted a ‘return to history’ and shared a Marxist concern for the historical and ideological conditions that produce literature in relation to cultural mechanisms of social organization. New historicists suggest that all texts, including literature, are complicit in mediating historical, political, social and cultural anxieties whether these anxieties are explicitly discussed or not. New historicists suggest that as history is always interpreted and written – in other words always textual and a form of narrative – it is not therefore a transparent process, but a practice bound up with the historian’s interpretative subjectivity. The historian’s own social and cultural context results in potential biases that new historicists argue will be reflected.
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