New Historicism

New Historicism - definition, characteristics

1. Dr. Jyoti Waghmare Assistant Professor Dept. of English [email protected] Walchand College of Arts and Science, Solapur www.wcssolapur.org

2. Learning Outcome at the end of this session

3. Term coined by American critic Stephen Greenblatt Book “Renaissance Self Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare” (1980) Influence of theory of Mitchell Foucault Challenged conservative critical ideas about Jacobean plays Linked the plays with political events of that era Basic idea read history with literary text

4. “it is a method based on the parallel reading of literary and non-literary texts usually of the same historical period.” “a combined interest in the ‘textuality of history’ and ‘historicity of text’- Louis Montrose

5. A reaction to text only approach of Formalist New Critics Refuses to privilege the literary texts Instead of literary ‘foreground’ and historical ‘background’ Literary and non literary texts are given equal weight Constantly informing and interrogating each other

6. It places the literary text within the frame of non literary text’ Historical documents are not subordinated as ‘contexts’ but called and treated as ‘co-texts’ The text and the co-text are seen as expressions of same historical moments. ‘Equal Weight’ to literary and non literary texts It is an approach to literature in which there is no privileging of the literary

7. New historicism involves the parallel study of literary and non-literary texts. The word parallel encapsulates the essential difference Equal weighting to literary and non-literary material is the most important difference between New Historicism and Old Historicism.

8. Another important difference between old and new historicism is in the word ‘archival’ in the phrase ‘archival continuum’ indicates new historicism is really a historical movement. It is interested in history as represented and recorded in written documents in ‘History as Text.’

9. The basic concept of new historicism is that in literary studies the actual thoughts, feelings, or intentions of a writer can never be covered or reconstructed. So the real living individual is now entirely superseded by the literary text The world of the past was replaced by the words of the past. Textual record of the past New historicism accepts Derrida’s views ‘nothing outside of text’

10. They juxtapose literary and non-literary texts, reading the literature in the light of history They defamilarize the canonical literary text detach it with from the accumulated weight of previous literary scholarships They focus attention (within both co-text and text) on issues of state power and how it is maintained, on patriarchal structures and on the process of colonization, etc. They use aspects of post structuralist outlook especially Derrida’s notion that every facet of reality is textualized

11. Although it is founded upon post-structuralist thinking but it is written in a far more accessible way and avoids post structuralism’s dense style and vocabulary. The material itself is most fascinating than context of literary studies It avoids the problems frequently encountered in “straight Marxist Criticism” It seems less overtly polemical and more willing to allow the historical evidence its own voice.

12. “Beginning Theory” , Barry peter Differences between New Historicism and Old historicism

13. THANK YOU