Practicing New Historicism

Practicing New Historicism PDF Author: Catherine Gallagher
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022677256X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
For almost twenty years, new historicism has been a highly controversial and influential force in literary and cultural studies. In Practicing the New Historicism, two of its most distinguished practitioners reflect on its surprisingly disparate sources and far-reaching effects. In lucid and jargon-free prose, Catherine Gallagher and Stephen Greenblatt focus on five central aspects of new historicism: recurrent use of anecdotes, preoccupation with the nature of representations, fascination with the history of the body, sharp focus on neglected details, and skeptical analysis of ideology. Arguing that new historicism has always been more a passionately engaged practice of questioning and analysis than an abstract theory, Gallagher and Greenblatt demonstrate this practice in a series of characteristically dazzling readings of works ranging from paintings by Joos van Gent and Paolo Uccello to Hamlet and Great Expectations. By juxtaposing analyses of Renaissance and nineteenth-century topics, the authors uncover a number of unexpected contrasts and connections between the two periods. Are aspects of the dispute over the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist detectable in British political economists' hostility to the potato? How does Pip's isolation in Great Expectations shed light on Hamlet's doubt? Offering not only an insider's view of new historicism, but also a lively dialogue between a Renaissance scholar and a Victorianist, Practicing the New Historicism is an illuminating and unpredictable performance by two of America's most respected literary scholars. "Gallagher and Greenblatt offer a brilliant introduction to new historicism. In their hands, difficult ideas become coherent and accessible."—Choice "A tour de force of new literary criticism. . . . Gallagher and Greenblatt's virtuoso readings of paintings, potatoes (yes, spuds), religious ritual, and novels—all 'texts'—as well as essays on criticism and the significance of anecdotes, are likely to take their place as model examples of the qualities of the new critical school that they lead. . . . A zesty work for those already initiated into the incestuous world of contemporary literary criticism-and for those who might like to see what all the fuss is about."—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

Practicing New Historicism

Practicing New Historicism PDF Author: Catherine Gallagher
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022677256X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 260

Get Book Here

Book Description
For almost twenty years, new historicism has been a highly controversial and influential force in literary and cultural studies. In Practicing the New Historicism, two of its most distinguished practitioners reflect on its surprisingly disparate sources and far-reaching effects. In lucid and jargon-free prose, Catherine Gallagher and Stephen Greenblatt focus on five central aspects of new historicism: recurrent use of anecdotes, preoccupation with the nature of representations, fascination with the history of the body, sharp focus on neglected details, and skeptical analysis of ideology. Arguing that new historicism has always been more a passionately engaged practice of questioning and analysis than an abstract theory, Gallagher and Greenblatt demonstrate this practice in a series of characteristically dazzling readings of works ranging from paintings by Joos van Gent and Paolo Uccello to Hamlet and Great Expectations. By juxtaposing analyses of Renaissance and nineteenth-century topics, the authors uncover a number of unexpected contrasts and connections between the two periods. Are aspects of the dispute over the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist detectable in British political economists' hostility to the potato? How does Pip's isolation in Great Expectations shed light on Hamlet's doubt? Offering not only an insider's view of new historicism, but also a lively dialogue between a Renaissance scholar and a Victorianist, Practicing the New Historicism is an illuminating and unpredictable performance by two of America's most respected literary scholars. "Gallagher and Greenblatt offer a brilliant introduction to new historicism. In their hands, difficult ideas become coherent and accessible."—Choice "A tour de force of new literary criticism. . . . Gallagher and Greenblatt's virtuoso readings of paintings, potatoes (yes, spuds), religious ritual, and novels—all 'texts'—as well as essays on criticism and the significance of anecdotes, are likely to take their place as model examples of the qualities of the new critical school that they lead. . . . A zesty work for those already initiated into the incestuous world of contemporary literary criticism-and for those who might like to see what all the fuss is about."—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

The New Historicism

The New Historicism PDF Author: Harold Veeser
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317761200
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
Following Clifford Geertz and other cultural anthropologists, the New Historicist critics have evolved a method for describing culture in action. Their "thick descriptions" seize upon an event or anecdote--colonist John Rolfe's conversation with Pocohontas's father, a note found among Nietzsche's papers to the effect that "I have lost my umbrella"--and re-read it to reveal through the analysis of tiny particulars the motive forces controlling a whole society. Contributors: Stephen J. Greenblatt, Louis A. Montrose, Catherine Gallagher, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Gerald Graff, Jean Franco, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Frank Lentricchia, Vincent Pecora, Jane Marcus, Jon Klancher, Jonathan Arac, Hayden White, Stanley Fish, Judith Newton, Joel Fineman, John Schaffer, Richard Terdiman, Donald Pease, Brooks Thomas.

Neo-historicism

Neo-historicism PDF Author: Robin Headlam Wells
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
ISBN: 9780859915816
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Essays on English Renaissance culture make a major contribution to the debate on historical method.

The New Historicism and Other Old-Fashioned Topics

The New Historicism and Other Old-Fashioned Topics PDF Author: Brook Thomas
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691233209
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
Brook Thomas explores the new historicism and the challenges posed to it by a postmodern world that questions the very possibility of newness. He considers new historicism's engagement with poststructuralism and locates the former within a tradition of pragmatic historiography in the United States.

New Historicism and Cultural Materialism

New Historicism and Cultural Materialism PDF Author: John Brannigan
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1349266221
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
New historicism and cultural materialism emerged in the early 1980s as prominent literary theories and came to represent a revival of interest in history and in historicising literature. Their proponents rejected both formalist criticism and earlier attempts to read literature in its historical context and defined new ways of thinking about literature in relation to history. This study explains the development of these theories and demonstrates both their uses and weaknesses as critical practices. The potential future direction for the theories is explored and the controversial debates about their validity in literary studies are discussed.

New Historicism and Renaissance Drama

New Historicism and Renaissance Drama PDF Author: Richard Wilson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131550443X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
New Historicism has been one of the major developments in literary theory over the last decade, both in the USA and Europe. In this book, Wilson and Dutton examine the theories behind New Historicism and its celebrated impact in practice on Renaissance Drama, providing an important collection both for students of the genre and of literary theory.

 PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780719049866
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description


Shakespeare and Contemporary Theory

Shakespeare and Contemporary Theory PDF Author: Neema Parvini
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1441193936
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
A complete critical introduction to New Historicist and Cultural Materialist approaches that have dominated contemporary Shakespeare theory, as well as alternative new directions.

Dickens and New Historicism

Dickens and New Historicism PDF Author: William J. Palmer
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9780312174279
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 203

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Book Description
Throughout his work, Charles Dickens focused upon the definition, composition, and democratizing of the process of writing history. In Dickens and New Historicism, William J. Palmer takes as his point of departure the New Historicist critical theories articulated by Michel Foucault, Mikhail Bakhtin, Hayden White, Dominick LaCapra and others, and offers a critical analysis of Dickens's complete body of work. Palmer reveals that not only did Dickens give voice to the marginalized participants in the history of the eighteenth century and of his own contemporary Victorian age, but evolved a philosophy of history composed from the perspective of those marginalized voices.

Theory of Literature

Theory of Literature PDF Author: Paul H. Fry
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300183364
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 389

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Book Description
Bringing his perennially popular course to the page, Yale University Professor Paul H. Fry offers in this welcome book a guided tour of the main trends in twentieth-century literary theory. At the core of the book's discussion is a series of underlying questions: What is literature, how is it produced, how can it be understood, and what is its purpose? Fry engages with the major themes and strands in twentieth-century literary theory, among them the hermeneutic circle, New Criticism, structuralism, linguistics and literature, Freud and fiction, Jacques Lacan's theories, the postmodern psyche, the political unconscious, New Historicism, the classical feminist tradition, African American criticism, queer theory, and gender performativity. By incorporating philosophical and social perspectives to connect these many trends, the author offers readers a coherent overall context for a deeper and richer reading of literature.