Critique of New Historicism

Henry James said, "It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature." That being said, Literature is made of history, which means that it is a product of time, culture, place, political behavior, and phenomena in sociology. It is more than just a written text of the author. The same positive idea was highlighted in new historicism. However, there are limitations and disadvantages that the theory was composed of.   

According to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, New Historicism is a literary theory based on the idea that literature should be studied and interpreted within the context of both the history of the author and the history of the critic. Based on the literary criticism of Stephen Greenblatt and influenced by the philosophy of Michel Foucault, New Historicism acknowledges not only that a work of literature is influenced by its author's times and circumstances, but that the critic's response to that work is also influenced by his environment, beliefs, and prejudices.  

Many consider literary works as an art that has no value in the real world, besides many argue about the importance of it to education, without analyzing and appreciating literary works with the use of new historicism. Such approach to literary criticism give consideration to an external aspect of the work rather than isolating it only to the meaning of the words used, which means that new criticism would help the critics reveal the history of a certain period in which the work has been written.

New Historicist focuses on the historical context of literature, analyzing how the writer's times affected the work and how the work reflects the writer's times, which would lead to a realization of the relevance of the past to the current cultural contexts because cultural history can be revealed by studying the work. If only critics would dig deeper into the literary works then it would be much easier for him to relate the work to whatever idea that comes to his mind.   With the new historicism, criticism is objective to the historical background and carries a strong reference in terms of giving meaning to the work. However, history is wide and composed of several elements and influences. So, there would be a possibility that the historical context within the work would not be the right or even the closest clue to the real meaning of the literary work. In fact, there were historical events and shreds of evidence that were not yet proven to be true or existed. So, it will be hard for critics to apply history in analyzing a work. There are also instances that the work is dedicated to someone or something that has not existed in the period it was written. Furthermore, it makes the analysis dull because the scope of the study is limited only to the history which means that critics cannot give their personal insights about the work, they cannot share how the work relates to them, and they are restricted to give their own meaning to the literary work being studied.

Therefore, new historicism is objective because it is supported by history, but at the same time, it is complex because history has a wide content area. It is good for those who are in the field of history, but bad for those who don’t know how to relate historical ideas to literary work. It reflects the author’s history but doesn’t reflect the critic’s thoughts and feelings.