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Lit127: Mythology & Folk Literature July 12, 2012 New Historicism

Lit127: Mythology & Folk Literature July 12, 2012 New Historicism. New Historicism is a school of literary theory, grounded in critical theory, that developed in the 1980s, primarily through the work of the critic Stephen Greenblatt, and gained widespread influence in the 1990s .

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Lit127: Mythology & Folk Literature July 12, 2012 New Historicism

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  1. Lit127: Mythology & Folk LiteratureJuly 12, 2012New Historicism

  2. New Historicism is a school of literary theory, grounded in critical theory, that developed in the 1980s, primarily through the work of the critic Stephen Greenblatt, and gained widespread influence in the 1990s. New Historicists aim simultaneously to understand the work through its historical context and to understand cultural and intellectual history through literature, which documents the new discipline of the history of ideas.

  3. Samples…

  4. Lord of the Rings • Books written from 1937-49 • Became popular in the 1950s-60s • Adapted into film 2001-3

  5. The Ring of Power • 1330 Sir Degare (Auch.) 8 in W. H. French & C. B. Hale Middle Eng. Metrical Romances (1930) 288: In LitelBretaygne was a kyng Of gretpoer in alle thing, Stif in armesvndersscheld. • 1938 R. J. SONTAG Germany & Eng. I. iv. 88 This was contempt for British statesmen and the British army; but not for the potential power of the British Empire. • 1992Utne Reader Mar.-Apr. 122/3 (advt.) The Greens: What they believe, their prospects in the U.S., and what if they achieved power?

  6. Principles of New Historicism 1. Every expressive act is embedded in a network of material practices.

  7. Principles of New Historicism 2. Every act of unmasking, critique and opposition uses the tools it condemns and risks falling prey to the practice it exposes.

  8. Principles of New Historicism 3. Literary and non-literary "texts" circulate inseparably.

  9. Principles of New Historicism 4. No discourse, imaginative or archival, gives access to unchanging truths, nor expresses inalterable human nature;

  10. Principles of New Historicism 5. Critical method and a language adequate to describe culture under capitalism participate in the economy they describe.

  11. Case Study: Gilgamesh When? 2500 B.C.

  12. Case Study: Gilgamesh Where? Sumeria Babylonian culture Modern day Iraq

  13. Case Study: Gilgamesh Who? Fifth king of Uruk Said to have reigned for 126 years Also said described as 2/3 god, 1/3 human

  14. Case Study: Gilgamesh What? Urukprobably had 50,000–80,000 residents living in 6 km2 of walled area; making it the largest city in the world at the time This period of 800 years saw a shift from small, agricultural villages to a larger urban center with a full-time bureaucracy, military, and stratified society. Although other settlements coexisted with Uruk, while Uruk was significantly larger and more complex. The Uruk period culture exported by Sumerian traders and colonists had an effect on all surrounding peoples, who gradually evolved their own comparable, competing economies and cultures Droit de seigneur

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