New Historicism - Handout

List of Terms (as defined by Charles Bressler):

Anecdote – an individual’s personal glimpse into their portion of history

Cultural Poetics – the umbrella term that includes American New Historicism and British Cultural
Materialism

Cultural Materialism – British version of New Historicism; includes heavy Marxist elements

Episteme – each epoch of history develops its own ideas of the nature of reality (how it defines truth)

Old Historicism – views history as objective; sees history as the base for literature

Tenets of New Historicism (quotes and summaries from Bressler):

“[P]ower affects literature as deeply as it does history; some narratives are unjustly stifled, being
intentionally repressed, subordinated, and forgotten. When uncovered, these seemingly trivial stories or
mini narratives have a surprisingly significant impact” (192).

“They devised a new definition of culture, embracing [the] belief that culture is the combined forms of
human experience expressed in art, politics, literature, and a host of other elements, each involved in a
complex, interrelational struggle for power” (186).

“[A]ll history is subjective, written by people whose personal biases affect their interpretation of the
past” (183).

“History, asserts Cultural Poetics, can never provide us with the objective truth or give us a totally
accurate picture of past events, persons, or eras nor the worldview of a group of people” (183).

Gaps in information result in the subjectivity of any given history (190).

“[M]eaning evolves from the interaction of the variously interwoven social discourses,” therefore “no
hierarchy of discourses can exist” (193).