New Historicism Against the Background of Contemporary Schools of Critical Theory

The present study explains our option for New Historicism in a way that avoids the comfort of simply casting our approach within a methodological frame assumed to meet our elective affinities. Instead, we are proceeding along the lines of a compare and contrast discussion of rival perspectives, not only on New Historicism but on the basics of literary theory and criticism. Although the two surveys of contemporary critical theories are didactic in nature, their theoretical assumptions come under our critical examination precisely because they lay the bases of the students’ appropriation of academic protocols. Whereas Mario Klarer (2004) does mention New Historicism defining it in a way which, we think, deserves several amendments, Julian Wolfreys, Editor of Introducing Criticism in the 21st Century (the Second, 2015 Edition of the original 2002 Introducing Criticism at the 21st Century) replaces what he calls the dominant “historicist, contextualist and sociological approach” in universities with a mix of “Space, Place and Memory” Studies including Affect Theory, Space and Place studies, Trauma, Testimony and Memory studies. We can also include here the chapter on Materialities, Immaterialities, (A)materialities, and Realities. The historicist picture is actually decomposed into space which is conceived of, not as static container, but as produced by historical praxis, and permanently emerging as both space of representation (projective, modelled on symbolic configurations) and as representation of space, that is, as an interface of the physical (Materialities), the imaginary (Irrealities), the cultural ((A) materialities), and the actual (Realities of the digital age). A spatialized history of traumatic events and memories will be the outcome of history’s and humanity’s entry into language, which, therefore, is not an objective record but a representation colored by affect and emotional response to historical experience. Among the various methods of interpretation, the author selects four basic approaches according to which most theoretical schools can be classified: text-based approaches, author-based approaches, reader-based approaches and context-based approaches.