Here we go with another very useful collection of essays by New Historicist critics. We’ll find readings of Renaissance and Romantic writers here as well as a bunch of theoretical essays that tie New Historicism to other schools such as Marxist criticism and feminism.
The essays in this collection are on a variety of different periods and subjects. What threads tie these essays together? What are some of the New Historicist assumptions or concerns that they all share?
New Historicism is often characterized as a “politically committed” field. How do the essays in this collection reflect this? To what extent can we describe New Historicism as a politically engaged school of literary criticism?