1. Introduction
This essay will be a discussion on some basic assumptions of the critical tradition of new historicism. In line with new historicism’s “determination to do so much justice to the example itself,”[1] I will base it on a close reading of Stephen Greenblatt’s 1998 essay “The circulation of social energy,” and discuss how new historicism appears specifically within and throughout that text.
Following the assignment text, I will try to separate out, and focus my discussion around, three basic assumptions of new historicism: First, that there is no single totalizing or autonomous originator, neither of a text, nor of a consistent, corporate social ideology; second, that, through a process of dynamic exchange, a text emerges out of, and bases its existence on an interplay with, a distinct culture; and third, that a successful text through this process can be empowered with a kind of social energy that makes it speak to us across centuries. Finally, I will remark briefly on the relevance of Greenblatt’s theoretical stance for other eras and genres.
