New Historical Criticism
From W100Wiki
According to the Bedford Glossary New Historicism is...
A type of literary criticism that developed during the 1980s, largely in reaction to the text-only approach pursued by formalist New Critics and the critics who challenged the New Criticism in the 1970s. New historicists, like formalists and their critics, acknowledge the importance of the literary text, but they also analyze the text with an eye to history. In this respect, the new historicism is not new; the majority of critics between 1920 and 1950 focused on a work's historical content and based their intentions on the interplay between the text and historical contexts (such as the author's life or intentions in writing the work).
for more please consult pages 294-300 in the second edition of The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms
Also, according to the OED...New Historicism is a form of cultural analysis which examines the ways in which a cultural product (esp. a literary text) interacts with and participates in its historical context, esp. with reference to the power relations operating within the society of its time. Freq. with the.
Mournfulbliss 11:11, 21 February 2007 (EST)
