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New Historicism (Greenblat)
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New perception of history itself. History is a test not a source of truth, can't be merely reflected. "Literature is influenced by its history context"
History and Literary Text reflect from one another |
Historicism Key Players
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Michael Focault
Stephen Greenblat Raymond Williams Stuart Hall |
Old Historicism
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Relegates history to mere background and context with the literature merely reflecting the history. Reflects unbias neutral way.
History only goes straight into Literary Text. |
Cultural Studies
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Analysis of literature (including popular literature) and other art forms in their social, political, or economic contexts. Overlaps with historicism.
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How does Cultural Studies and Historisicm overlap?
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1. by emphasizing the possibilties for resistent or relative autonomy from power.
2. tends to focus on popular culture |
Reflection Model
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New Historics rely on this method. Since it shows the literature responding to the history. But they replace direct reflection with indirect reflection, with mediated reflection.
Greenblat states history and literature shape each other. Because if literature only reflected the rest of the world, then we would have no reason to read literature. This model values the combination of reflection and rethinking into account, both in literary art and art of literary criticism. |
Presentism
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Viewing the past through the lens of the present. To disavow our interests in the present would distort our view of the past more than to own up to our interests. Historicism believes this is good since it produces the view of how we feel about our history in the present.
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Discourse (Foucault)
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This is shaped by the individual. Basically, knowledge constructs what it purports to know. it is mediated by history, rather than being pure knowledge of unmediated raw truth. they are not absolute, yet yeild great power. (self discipline, policing one's self)
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Panopticon (Foucault)
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Foucault uses the prison as an example. He shows that self discipline by abidng by the dominant discourses of gender works more powerfully than coercion. Then knowledge itself means surveillance , regulation, and discipline, a discourse produces what it purports to describe. Does not matter whether a subject is centered, it's the exterior that's powerful. There maybe a subject, but there may not. It is similiar to Althusser's theory of ideology.
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Popular culture (Hall)
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Media designed for the masses and has mass appeal. also considered a debase form-escaping mentally with out physically escaping.
Elite-opera Mass-Youtube |