New Historicism and Cultural Materialism have become two of the most
powerful and appealing movements in modern criticism. Their conquest of
Renaissance studies has escalated into global colonialisation of English
and American literary history. A wealth of innovative work has emerged
on everything from the "Canterbury Tales" to the "Cantos", bringing
intense theoretical controversy in its wake. This reader pulls the
diversity and polemical vigour of this new critical constellation into
focus for the first time. The introduction identifies the distinctive
concerns of both approaches, unpacks their theoretical assumptions and
clarifies their chief points of convergence and antagonism. It offers a
sympathetic but skeptical perspective on Cultural Materialism and New
Historicism, highlighting their blind spots as well as applauding their
insights, and searching out the points where they seem poised to move
beyond the limits of their own methodologies. The selection itself
unfolds in three stages. The first group of essays locates the
intellectual sources of both movements in figures such as Foucault,
Geertz, Althusser, Williams and Derrida. The second mounts a theoretical
debate between prominent exponents and opponents of both kinds of
criticism, including Stephen Greenblatt, Catherine Belsey, Alan Sinfield
and Majorie Levinson. The final group carries the debate forward
through a wide range of critical readings, which illustrate the
practical impact of New Historicism and Cultural Materialism, on the
novels, plays and poems of authors from Aeschylus to Ezra Pound. The
Reader concludes with a bibliography of criticism which has applied
these approaches to medieval literature, Shakespeare and the
Renaissance, 18th century studies, the Romantic period, 19th century
literature, early 20th century writing and the American literary
tradition.