NEW HISTORICISM
New Historicism is a literary movement or theory which developed in the 1980s. It was a reaction against the 20th century literary theories of Formalism and Post Structuralism. New Historicism lays much emphasis on the study of the text in its historical and cultural contexts. Here, historicity of the text and textuality of the history are more important.
ORIGIN OF NEW HISTORICISM:
Stephen Greenblatt, an American critic is considered the founder of this new approach in literary criticism. He coined the term New Historicism in his ‘Introduction to the Power of Forms in the English Renaissance in 1982. J. W. Lever also published his critical work ‘The Tragedy State: Study in Jacobean Drama’ and popularized the idea that text is not everything, one must look at the historicity of the text to arrive at the fuller understanding. This theory gained widespread popularity in the 1990s and beyond.
DEFINITION OF NEW HISTORICISM:
“It is a method based on the parallel reading of literary and non-literary texts usually of the same historical period.”
“It is a combined interest in the ‘textuality of history and historicity of the text.”
– Louis Montrose
New Historicism is the latest approach to literary criticism and literary theory based on the idea that a literary work should be considered a product of the time, place, and historical circumstances in which it is written. A work of art is not an isolated. In fact, this movement is a reaction against all other theories of 20th century New Criticism such as Formalism, Structuralism, Post Structuralism and so on. The followers of New Historicism try to understand the work of art through its historical as well as cultural contexts and they further try to understand cultural history of the concerned nation through literature.
OLD HISRTORICISM:
The idea that literature is the product of the society and culture in which it is written already existed during the 19th century.
Sainte Beuve, a 19th century French critic came with his theory of biographical or historical study of literature. He believed that the artist cannot escape from his personality. No writer lives in vacuum. All arts spring from the personality of the artists. So, the critic’s job is to understand the mind, life and personality of the author. To understand a work of art, one has to understand the author, his biography in a scientific manner.
Taine, an another French critic of the 19th century, adopted biographical, historical and social method of criticism. He believed that literature is the product of social forces. For him, an artist is always the product of his own age. He gave his theory of “race, milieu and moment.”
3. E. M. W. Tillyard was also an Old Historicist who published his critical works ‘Elizabetahn World Picture’ (1943) and Shakespear’s ‘Historical Plays’ (1944) and examined the plays of Shakespeare in the light of historical events which occurred in Europe during the times of Shakespeare.
4. Mitchell Foucault too gave the concept of “epistemology”, which means “knowledge”. According to him, knowledge or prevalent idea is derived from the history, tradition and culture.
NEW CRITICISM – A REACTION AGAINST OLD HISTORICISM:
There was a reaction against this historical, social and biographical approach to literature during the 20th century. The modern and post modern critics like Eliot, Barthes and focused more on the text, its form and structure while interpreting a work of art.
T. S. Eliot published his most famous critical article ‘Tradition and Individual Talent’ in 1919. Here, for the first time we come across this scientific approach to poetry. Eliot defines poetry, “Poetry is not a turning loose of emotions, but an escape from emotion; it is not an expression of personality, but an escape from personality.”Eliot opines that poetry and the poet are detached. Poetry has nothing to do with the poet’s personality. Hence, a kind of objective approach to poetry was first initiated by Eliot.
I. A. Richards published ‘The Principles of Literary Criticism’ in 1924 wherein he argued that a text should be very closely read and analyzed without referring to external materials and issues such as cultural, political, and economic and others.
Roland Barthes, a French critic also published his essay ‘Death of the Author in 1967 where he advocates the focus on the form and structure of the text. He avers that the moment poetry is written, the author is dead. While criticizing poetry, the critic need not look at who the poet is and what his cultural or social background is.
NEW HISTORICISM:
LITERERATURE AND HISTORY:
The critics of New Historicism believe that the authors are not living in a vacuum. They are the products of their culture, their national history and as a result their literature too has deep impact or influence of that culture and history. Hence, they believe that a work of art cannot be understood well without considering its historical and cultural background. They hold the idea that history and culture of a particular nation influences its literature and literature in turn influences its history and culture. Both are interconnected and complementary to each other. Using Foucault's work as a starting point, New Historicism aims at interpreting a literary text as an expression of or reaction to the power-structures of the surrounding society.
TEXT AND CO-TEXT:
New Historicists focus on the study of literary and non-literary texts simultaneously. They try to relate the text to a non-literary text. They consider the non-literary text as “co-text”. They firmly believe that even non-literary texts of history, philosophy, mass-communication, sociology and so on exercise deep impact on literary texts and they too in turn are influenced by literary text. In short, they consider the “co-texts” as context to study the literary texts.
CONCLUSION:
In nutshell, we may summarize by saying that New Historicism was a movement in continuation of the 19th century theories developed by Taine and Saint Beauve. It was a reaction against the formalism of the 20th century. The critics of New Historicism study the texts considering the following aspects.
The time that the text was written.
The person who wrote the literature.
The events that happened at the time the literature was written.
How the literature has evolved with time to the form in which it is present today.
What message did it carry to the audience of the literature and what did it mean to the readers.
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