History and Text

Louis A. Montrose, one of the

representatives of new historicism, gives
his definition of new historicism as
“The historicity of texts and the
textuality of the histories”.
 “By the historicity of texts, I mean to suggest the historical specificity, the social and material
embedding, of all modes of writing---including not only the texts that critics study but also the texts
in which we study them; thus, I also mean to suggest the historical, social, and material embedding
of all modes of reading.”

--- “New Historicism”, Louis Montrose.

“The historicity of texts”:

① All the texts are socially historic, because they are the products of some
specific history, economy, politics, culture, and etc.
② Any interpretation of the texts is not purely objective as it is inevitably social
and historic.
③ The text is not merely the “reflection” of history. It is a historical and cultural
event that has the power to help shape the society, so it is an important part of
history.
“By the textuality of histories, I mean to suggest, in the first place, that we can have no access to a
full and authentic past, to a material existence that is unmediated by the textual traces of the society
in question; and furthermore, that the survival of those traces rather than others cannot be assumed
to be merely contingent but must rather be presumed to be at least partially consequent on subtle
processes of selective preservation and effacement---processes like those that have produced the
traditional humanities curriculum. In the second place, those victorious traces of material and
ideological struggle are themselves subject to subsequent mediations when they are construed as
the “documents” on which those who profess the humanities ground their own descriptive and
interpretive texts.”

--- “New Historicism”, Louis Montrose.

“The textuality of histories”:

① We have to depend on the texts to know the history, otherwise we have no

other way. And the text is not an objective and passive reflection of history, it
goes through the process of selection, effacement and preservation.

② The text can serve as a medium for interpretation. When historians write
history, they consult the texts that become the basis of history, the texts thus
once again serve as the media of interpretation.