P-205 Assignment

 P-205 Assignment

New Historicism

Name- Kishan Jadav

Paper- Cultural Studies

Roll no-10

Enrollment no-3069206420200008

Email id- jadavkishan55555@gmail.com

Batch-2020-22 (MA Sem-III)

Submitted to- S. B. Gardi Department of English,

Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

Introduction :

New Historicism is all about paying close attention to the historical context of the literary works. After all , play, poems, novels in general are products of a specific time and place. New Historicism is an approach to literary criticism and literary theory based on the premise that a literary work should be considered a product of time , place and historical circumstances of its composition rather than as an isolated work of art or text. New historians aim simultaneously to understand the work through its historical context and to understand culture as well as to history and cultural history through literature.

What is New Historicism?  

“A method based on the parallel reading of literary and non-literary texts, usually of the same time period.” New Historicism is a school of literary theory which combines critical theory into easier forms of practice for academic literary theorists of the 1990s. New historicists ask, 'How has the event been interpreted?' and 'What do the interpretations tell us about the interpreters?’. So New Historicism resists the notion that "...history is a series of events that have a linear, causal relationship: event A caused event B; event B caused event C; and so on(Tyson). New Historicist are Stephen Greenblatt, J.W. Lever, Jonathan Dollimore, H.Aram Veeser.

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

Stephen Greenblatt :

Stephen Greenblatt first developed his work in 1980. Afterwards it goes on spreading during the same decade. He wrote in his book “Will of the World”, Context is replaced by “co-text”, that is an interrelated non- literary text from the same time period.

Michel Foucault & New Historicism :

New Historicism is always anti-establishment, on the side of liberal ideas and personal freedoms. Believe in Michel Foucault’s idea of an all-seeing—panoptic— surveillance State. The panoptic state brings power through rational practices, circulating ideology through the body-politic. The State is seen as a monolithic structure and change is nearly impossible.

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'.

Example: Re-reading of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (Laputa), Andrew Marvel’s To his Coy Mistress. 

Second they want to study how a work of literary work comments on and relates to its context. New historicism is a super influential theoretical school. The fact of the matter is that the new historicist transformed the way that literary criticism was done. They made it legit for literary critics to talk about politics ,class and power and to take an interdisciplinary approach to study of literature. New historicist aim to do two things: first they want to study how a work of literature reflects its sociocultural context.

Self –fashioning :

Self fashioning is a term coined by Greenblatt. Who made it up to described the way that renaissance authors like William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlow created identities for themselves according to the social ,cultural and political code of their time Early new historicist like Stephen green and Catherine Gallaher were inspired by three theorist : Michel Foucault ,Clifford Geertz and Raymond William.

Cultural as a text :

 Cultural is like a book New historicists think of culture as text and literary text are little text within this big text that is culture .Everything is text. 

Non Canonical :

New historicist like to study non canonical work alongside canonical work saying That distinction between “high” literature and “low” literature is just plain…useless.

Cultural Poetics :

Stephen Green blatt ,prefers to use “cultural poetics” to describe , instead of “new historicism "but it pretty much means the same thing, except instead of emphasizing that it is a new way to look for the historical sides of text. 

Representation :

The new historicist’s job is to see how literary representations reflect aspects of the social life of their time and also how they comment on or critique them.

History :

According to the new historicism history isn't just a list of facts that we compile. There are many different versions of history so many different ways to show up in art or literature. 

Materialism :

The new historicists take material conditions very seriously because they think that these conditions are really important in how literary works are produced and consumed by the audience .They described history and culture as material.

New Historicism & Shakespeare :

:

Shakespeare’s play “Merchant of Venice” Question always raised... The play shows Shakespeare to be anti-Semitic? 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.According to Historicists: Work must be judged in the context in which it was written. Studying the history reveals more about the text; studying the text reveals more about the history.

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 & New Historicism :

Old Historicism :

 Hierarchical A historical movement: creates a historical framework in which to place the text. “The word of the past replaces the world of the past.  

New Historicism :

Parallel Reading A historicist movement. Interested in history as represented and recorded in written documents—history as text. The aim is not to represent the past as it really was, but to present a new reality by re- situating it.

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. 

Conclusion :

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.Thus New Historicism applies the poststructuralist idea that reality is constructed and multiple, and the Foucauldian idea of the role of power in creating knowledge.

Citation :

Hickling, Matt. "New Historicism". RG, 2018, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324707317_New_Historicism. Accessed 24 Oct 2021.

Pallardy, Richard. "Stephen Greenblatt". Encyclopedia Britannica, 3 Nov. 2020, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Stephen-Greenblatt. Accessed 24 October 2021.