New Historicism

New Historicism

Understanding New Historicist Thought

New Historicism, an influential school of literary theory that gained prominence primarily in the 1980s, particularly in American academia, offers a distinct approach to understanding literature by intricately weaving together text and context. It fundamentally asserts that a literary work is a product of its specific historical period and, conversely, that our understanding of a historical period can be profoundly enriched by studying its literature. This critical lens posits an inseparable bond between a text and the cultural, social, economic, and political circumstances surrounding its creation and reception, thereby challenging the idea that literature possesses a singular, inherent meaning independent of these formative influences. New Historicism encourages a dialogue between the past and the present, acknowledging that our interpretation of historical texts also reanimates past voices and allows their "social energy"—their cultural impact and negotiations with power—to circulate and inform contemporary understanding.

The genesis of New Historicism is closely associated with the work of American scholar Stephen Greenblatt, whose studies of Renaissance literature, such as Renaissance Self-Fashioning (1980) and Shakespearean Negotiations (1988), became defining examples of its practice. Greenblatt, who later sometimes preferred the term "cultural poetics," was significantly influenced by the French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault. Foucauldian concepts such as "discourse" (institutionalised ways of thinking that construct subjects and objects), "power" (a productive and pervasive network of relations rather than solely repressive force), and "episteme" (underlying structures of knowledge in a given period) became foundational to New Historicist thought. This theoretical framework views history not as a monolithic, objective record but as a series of narratives constructed through interpretation, always shaped by the perspectives of those who record and interpret it.

At its core, New Historicism rests on several key principles. It emphasises the mutual constitution of literature and history: literature is shaped by its historical moment, and history is itself textual and accessible through its cultural products, including literary works. It rejects the idea of a single, objective historical truth, instead focusing on the multiplicity of discourses and power relations within a given period. Furthermore, New Historicism gives equal analytical weight to literary and non-literary texts, examining official documents, private letters, and popular culture alongside canonical literature to reconstruct the "discursive field" of an era. This approach allows for a dynamic understanding of how texts participate in the circulation and negotiation of meaning and power within their specific cultural contexts.

Key Concepts in New Historicist Literary Criticism

Several pivotal concepts and methodologies are central to understanding New Historicist literary criticism:

• Text and Context: New Historicism insists that literary texts are deeply embedded in their historical and cultural contexts. It argues that a text cannot be separated from the social, political, economic, and intellectual currents of its time, and that both text and context are mutually illuminating; literature shapes our understanding of history, just as history shapes literature.

• The Circulation of Social Energy (Greenblatt): This concept suggests that literary works are sites of dynamic exchange where "social energy"—encompassing power, beliefs, anxieties, and cultural practices—circulates between texts, authors, audiences, and other cultural domains. Literature both draws upon and contributes to the transformation and redistribution of these energies in a complex, reciprocal process.

• Discourse and Power (Foucault): Drawing heavily on Michel Foucault, New Historicism analyses how discourses—systems of thought, statements, and practices—construct our understanding of the world and what counts as "truth" within a specific historical period. Power and knowledge are seen as inextricably linked; power operates through the production of knowledge, and knowledge legitimises power relations. Power is viewed as productive and pervasive, shaping subjects, institutions, and norms, and texts are examined for how they reflect, reproduce, challenge, or subvert these dynamics, including mechanisms of "containment" where apparent subversion is co-opted.

• Historicity of Texts and Textuality of History: New Historicism views literary texts as historical artefacts and, crucially, views history itself as a narrative or text that is constructed and interpreted. It moves away from seeing history as a stable, factual "background" and instead treats it as a dynamic "foreground" that is open to multiple interpretations and actively shaped by the texts (literary and non-literary) produced within it.

• Anecdote and Thick Description: New Historicist analyses often begin with a specific, sometimes marginal, historical anecdote or cultural detail to ground the interpretation in concrete particulars and resist broad generalisations. This is often coupled with "thick description," a term borrowed from anthropologist Clifford Geertz, which involves an in-depth interpretation of cultural phenomena and literary texts, paying close attention to layers of symbolic meaning and shared understandings within their specific cultural context.

Applying New Historicism to Nikkei Diaspora Literature

Applying New Historicist literary criticism to Nikkei diaspora literature offers a valuable framework for exploring how these texts engage with specific historical experiences, power dynamics, and the construction of identity. Nikkei diaspora literature frequently grapples with themes of migration, displacement, memory, internment, and cultural hybridity, all deeply rooted in particular historical contexts.

Consider, for example, the analysis of Nikkei literature through a New Historicist lens:

• Contextualising Identity and Historical Trauma: New Historicism allows for a nuanced analysis of how Nikkei identities are forged and negotiated within specific historical moments and geographical locations. For instance, narratives of wartime internment, such as Joy Kogawa’s Obasan or John Okada’s No-No Boy, can be read alongside contemporaneous government documents, propaganda, personal diaries from camps, and oral histories. This juxtaposition illuminates how official discourses of national security or racialised suspicion clashed with the lived experiences of Nikkei individuals, revealing the power dynamics at play and the ways literature gives voice to silenced histories and traumas. The literature then becomes a site where the "social energy" of these traumatic experiences is articulated and circulated.

• Analysing Power Dynamics and Marginalised Narratives: Diasporic communities often exist in complex relationships with the power structures of their host nations. New Historicism’s focus on how power is constituted and contested is ideal for examining how Nikkei literary texts might challenge, subvert, or expose dominant ideologies, such as those underpinning discriminatory immigration policies (like the US Immigration Act of 1924) or assimilationist pressures. By placing literary works in dialogue with historical records of such policies, critics can uncover counter-discourses that affirm cultural preservation or critique national myths that exclude Nikkei experiences.

• The Interplay of Literary and Non-Literary Texts: A New Historicist approach would examine Nikkei literary narratives alongside a wide array of contemporaneous non-literary materials – official reports, letters, newspaper articles, photographs, or even popular songs that depicted Japanese immigrants. For example, analysing accounts of labour on Brazilian coffee fazendas or Peruvian sugar plantations in Nikkei literature alongside actual labour contracts or emigration company records reveals the economic and social pressures shaping these communities. This "cross-reading" helps to reconstruct the discursive environment, showing how literature performs "cultural work" by participating in, responding to, or reconfiguring circulating ideas and power relations.

• Unearthing "History from Below": Through the use of anecdotes and attention to marginalised experiences, New Historicism can illuminate the everyday lives and specific struggles of Nikkei individuals often overlooked by grand historical narratives. Stories of cultural negotiation, acts of quiet resistance, or the impact of generational differences (Issei, Nisei, Sansei) on identity, as depicted in many Nikkei works, can be analysed as particular expressions that reveal broader cultural patterns and contest official histories.

Through such methods, New Historicism reveals Nikkei diaspora literature not merely as a reflection of historical events but as an active participant in the ongoing dialogue about identity, power, and memory, deeply embedded in the specific social and political energies of its time.

Advantages and Limitations of New Historicist Inquiry

New Historicist inquiry offers significant advantages for analysing literature, particularly texts like those from the Nikkei diaspora that are profoundly shaped by historical circumstance. Its primary strength lies in its insistence on reconnecting literary works to their multifaceted contexts – social, political, economic, and cultural. This approach moves beyond purely formal readings to explore how literature engages with and is shaped by power relations, dominant ideologies, and societal discourses. By treating literary and non-literary texts with equal seriousness, New Historicism can unearth marginalised voices and perspectives, challenging monolithic or official historical narratives and offering a more complex understanding of the past. Its focus on the "circulation of social energy" and the interplay of various cultural artefacts provides a dynamic model for understanding how meanings are produced, negotiated, and contested within a specific period. For diaspora studies, its capacity to contextualise identity formation and analyse experiences of displacement and discrimination is particularly valuable.

However, New Historicism also faces certain limitations and criticisms. Its methodology, particularly the use of anecdotes, has sometimes been criticised for being selective or lacking a systematic theory of history, potentially leading to interpretations that are more illustrative than rigorously proven. The emphasis on the constructedness of history and the textual nature of reality has led to charges of relativism, suggesting it might neglect material realities or economic forces by over-textualising history. Furthermore, its Foucauldian emphasis on the pervasiveness of power and the potential for "containment" – where subversive acts are ultimately co-opted by dominant structures – has led some critics to argue that New Historicism can present a somewhat pessimistic view, implying the ultimate futility of resistance and potentially overlooking genuine agency or the aesthetic qualities of literature in favour of ideological critique. A sensitive and self-aware application is therefore crucial to harness its strengths effectively.

Conclusion

New Historicism provides a vital and illuminating framework for analysing literature, urging a return to the historical and cultural contexts from which texts emerge and in which they circulate. It moves literary criticism beyond an exclusive focus on the isolated text to explore the intricate and dynamic ways in which literature interacts with power, ideology, and the myriad discourses that constitute social reality in any given period. By examining how meanings are produced, contested, and negotiated, New Historicism illuminates the crucial role literature plays in both reflecting and actively shaping our understanding of the past and its enduring influence on the present.

Its application to Nikkei diaspora literature allows for a profound engagement with themes of identity, migration, historical trauma, memory, and cultural hybridity. By placing these literary narratives in dialogue with a diverse array of contemporaneous historical materials, New Historicism helps to uncover the specific social energies, power dynamics, and cultural anxieties that shaped the experiences of Japanese individuals and communities outside Japan. It encourages a critical understanding of how these works engage with dominant discourses, challenge fixed categories, and articulate unique perspectives on belonging and displacement, thereby giving richer voice to narratives that have often been marginalised. While mindful of its methodological considerations, New Historicist inquiry offers indispensable tools for appreciating the complexity and socio-political significance of literary production.

Further reading

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by Alan Sheridan, Vintage Books, 1995.

Although Foucault himself was a historian and philosopher rather than a literary critic, his work is foundational to New Historicism. Discipline and Punish meticulously traces the historical transformation of punitive practices, arguing that modern power operates not just through overt force but through pervasive systems of discipline, surveillance, and the internalisation of norms. Foucault’s analyses of power as productive and diffuse, his concept of "discourse" as a system that shapes knowledge and reality, and his attention to the micro-politics of institutions have profoundly influenced New Historicist critics in their examination of how literary texts engage with, reflect, or are constrained by the power structures and discursive formations of their historical periods.

Gallagher, Catherine, and Stephen Greenblatt. Practicing New Historicism. University of Chicago Press, 2000.

In this volume, two leading figures of New Historicism reflect on the critical practice they helped to pioneer. The book offers a collection of essays that both exemplify and theorise New Historicist methodologies. Gallagher and Greenblatt explore the relationship between literature and history, the role of the anecdote, and the ways in which cultural meanings are produced and circulated. The work addresses some of the theoretical underpinnings of New Historicism, offering insights into its development and responding implicitly or explicitly to critiques it had faced, thereby providing a mature consideration of the approach’s aims, methods, and enduring relevance for literary and cultural study.

Greenblatt, Stephen. Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare. University of Chicago Press, 1980.

This is widely regarded as one of the foundational texts of New Historicism. Greenblatt analyses the lives and works of key sixteenth-century figures, including More, Tyndale, Wyatt, Spenser, Marlowe, and Shakespeare, to explore the idea of "self-fashioning"—the process by which individuals construct their identities in relation to available cultural codes and power structures. The book demonstrates a key New Historicist concern: understanding how subjectivity is shaped by historical and cultural forces, and how literary texts are deeply implicated in this process. It showcases the method of reading literary works in conjunction with a wide array of other cultural "texts" to reveal the interplay of power, representation, and identity.

Greenblatt, Stephen. Shakespearean Negotiations: The Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England. University of California Press, 1988.

In this seminal work, Greenblatt introduces and elaborates upon his influential concept of the "circulation of social energy." He argues that literary texts, particularly Shakespeare's plays, participate in a dynamic exchange of cultural meanings, anxieties, and power with other elements of their society. This "social energy" is appropriated by the literary work and, in turn, is shaped and redirected by it. Shakespearean Negotiations moves beyond a simple model of literature reflecting its historical background, instead positing a more complex, reciprocal relationship where texts are active agents in the construction and negotiation of cultural realities. This book exemplifies the New Historicist method of detailed contextual reading to uncover the cultural work performed by literature.

Veeser, H. Aram, editor. The New Historicism. Routledge, 1989.

This collection of essays was instrumental in defining and disseminating New Historicism as a significant critical movement, particularly in North America. It brings together contributions from various critics, offering a range of perspectives on the theory's aims, methodologies, and intellectual influences (notably Foucault and Geertz). The volume explores key New Historicist tenets, such as the interconnectedness of text and context, the rejection of history as a monolithic background, and the interest in power relations as manifest in cultural productions. It serves as a crucial introduction to the central debates and diverse voices that shaped early New Historicist thought.

Veeser, H. Aram, editor. The New Historicism Reader. Routledge, 1994.

Following his earlier influential collection, Veeser here compiles a further set of important essays and excerpts that represent the ongoing development and application of New Historicist criticism. This reader provides access to key articulations of New Historicist principles and showcases exemplary critical practices. It allows students and scholars to engage directly with foundational arguments and significant case studies, illustrating the breadth of topics and historical periods to which New Historicism had been applied by the mid-1990s. The collection underscores the critical vitality of the movement and its impact on literary studies.