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• December 17, 2024
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If you’re preparing for the UGC-NET/JRF English Literature Exam, you need to have an in-depth understanding of literary theories and literary criticisms. These topics are complex and hence, they are major constituents of the UGC NET English Literature Syllabus. In this blog, we will cover new historicism. You must know quite a bit about this interdisciplinary literary theory. Let’s delve deeper into New Historicism.

What is New Historicism?

In his work The Power of Forms in the English Renaissance (1982), Stephen Greenblatt coined the term “new historicism” to describe this way of examining literature, basing his theory, partly, on the work of Michel Foucault.

New Historicism focuses on the relationship between literature and its historical/cultural context. It states that literary works are not isolated, timeless creations. Instead, it emphasizes their embeddedness in socio-political and cultural conditions of the time in which the texts were written.

If you’re using New Historicism as your lens, you will try to understand literature and culture by examining the historical and cultural contexts in which literary works were produced. Further, you will be exploring the ways in which literature and culture influence and are influenced by social and political power dynamics.

New Historicism is often associated with the work of Stephen Greenblatt who argued that literature is not a ‘timeless reflection of universal truths’. So, literature emerges as a product of the historical and cultural context in which it was produced. Greenblatt emphasized the importance of studying the social, political, and economic factors that shaped literary works, as well as the ways in which those works in turn influenced the culture and politics of their time.

According to Prof. Vineet Pandey, New Historicism also aims to break down the boundaries between high and low culture and helps you to figure out the ways in which literature and culture sync with other forms of discourse and representation, such as science, philosophy, and popular culture. Further, the theory also highlights that literature and culture are never neutral or objective, but are influenced by power dynamics. Further, it emphasizes the importance of the reader or interpreter in shaping the meaning of text, arguing that our own historical and cultural contexts influence the way we understand and interpret literary works.

In The New Historicism (2013), Harold Aram Veeser explains:

1. Every expressive act is embedded in a network of material practices.
2. Every act of unmasking, critique, and opposition uses the tools it condemns and risks falling prey to the practice it exposes.
3. Literary and non-literary ‘texts’ circulate inseparably: Prof. Vineet Pandey says, “No texts should be separated based on their perceived literary value.” For example, a lot of canonical literature was inspired by popular, “trash” fiction; Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897, [2012]) was influenced in part by the penny dreadful Varney the Vampyre (1845-46, [2012]) by James Malcolm Rymer.
4. No discourse, imaginative or archival, gives access to unchanging truths nor expresses inalterable human nature.

Key Texts to Understand New Historicism

1. Michael Foucault’s The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969): In this book, Foucault claims that history is not about stable facts. He aims to “uncover the principles and consequences of an autochthonous transformation that is taking place in the field of historical knowledge.” Further, he decided “to not use the categories of cultural totalities (whether world-views, ideal types, the particular spirit of an age) in order to impose on history, despite itself, the forms of structural analysis.”

Foucault and other new historicists reject the three assumptions. Let’s find out what these assumptions are.

1. History is knowable.
2. Literature mirrors…or reflects historical reality.
3. Historians and critics can see the facts objectively.
4. In The Power of Forms in the English Renaissance(1982), Greenblatt discusses literature in relation to “self-fashioning” in the Renaissance period. Self-fashioning is used to explain how individuals create their identity in line with societal norms and cultural expectations. For example, nobles would dress in a way which denoted their station and fashioned themselves to reflect the identity they wanted to convey, and what was expected for someone of that class.

According to Greenblatt, literature functions in a similar way and has three layers:

1. A work reflects the attitudes, values, and ideas of its author.
2. A work of literature reflects control mechanisms and social codes which shape our behaviour.
3. A work of literature reflects upon and comments on those mechanisms and codes.

Additionally, Greenblatt comments:

“Language, like other sign systems, is a collective construction; our interpretive task must be to grasp more sensitively the consequences of this fact by investigating both the social presence to the world of the literary text and the social presence of the world in the literary text.”

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How to Use New Historicism as a Critical Approach?

As per Prof. Vineet Pandey, while applying New Historicism to understand a literary work, you can consider the following things:

1. Research the Historical Context: Investigate the time period in which the literary work was written. Explore political events, social structures, economic conditions, and cultural movements.
2. Author’s Background: Examine the life and background of the author. Consider their personal experiences, beliefs, and the historical events that may have influenced them.
3. Identify Power Dynamics: Analyze power relationships within the text and in the historical context. Consider issues of class, gender, race, and other forms of social hierarchy.
4. Interdisciplinary Approach: Draw on insights from various disciplines such as history, sociology, anthropology, and political science to enrich your understanding of the historical and cultural context.
5. Cultural Artifacts: Treat the literary work as a cultural artifact. Identify elements within the text that reflect or respond to the cultural values, norms, and anxieties of the time.
6. Dialogues with Other Texts: Explore how the literary work engages with other texts, both literary and non-literary. Look for intertextual references and consider how the work contributes to broader cultural conversations (the discourse Foucault talks about).
7. Language and Literary Techniques: Analyze the language, narrative structure, and formal elements of the text. Consider how these literary techniques contribute to the overall meaning and how they may be influenced by or respond to historical factors.
8. Ideological Critique: Investigate the ideologies present in the text and how they align with or challenge the dominant ideologies of the historical period. Consider the ways in which literature participates in ideological struggles. We will explore more specific examples of how to do this when we focus on Marxism and Postcolonial Studies in our next section.
9. Social and Cultural Constructs: Examine how social and cultural constructs are represented in the text. This includes exploring representations of identity, social norms, and cultural practices.
10. Historical Events and Allusions: Identify direct or indirect references to historical events within the text. Consider how the events are portrayed and what commentary they offer on the historical moment.
11. Historical Change and Continuity: Assess how the text reflects or responds to processes of historical change and continuity. Consider whether the text aligns with or challenges prevailing attitudes and structures.
12. Reader Response: Reflect on how the historical context might shape the way readers interpret and respond to the text. Consider how the meaning of the text may evolve across different historical and cultural contexts.

Limitations of New Historicism

In Practicing New Historicism (2020), Catherine Gallagher and Greenblatt explain the central issues at the core of new historicism: the use of anecdotes, preoccupation with representation, fascination with the body, and skepticism towards ideology.

In New Historicism and Cultural Materialism (2016), John Brannigan outlines several of the criticisms levied at new historicism.

• New historicism is not, in fact, new; literary critics have, for a long time, taken into account social and political contexts when studying a work of literature.
• Literature should “transcend” factors such as the “politics, sociology, place, and the biography, race, and sexual orientation of the author.”
• New historicism “[ignores] the universal themes of literature.”
• New historicism reduces “human agency” by attributing the “production of literature to historical forces.”

If you want to prepare for the UGC-NET English, you can join Sahitya Classes. At Sahitya Classes, every aspect of the NET exam syllabus for English literature is covered. You will also receive UGC NET notes for English literature along with exclusive UGC-NET online classes. Our new batch will start in January 15, 2025. If you want to prepare for the UGC-NET English, you can also take our best UGC-NET crash course. In this crash course, you will get PYQs, test series, rapid-fire quiz sessions, mock tests, live classes, and UGC NET English notes pdf. So, what are you waiting for? Join now and get personalized guidance from Prof. Vineet Pandey!

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