Stephen Greenblatt‘s new historicist vision

W henever friends in other academic fields ask me as a professor of literature to explain what is going on in my discipline, I am usually surprised to discover how little they really know about literary studies today. They have just managed to get a feel for deconstruction, now that the theory has filtered down to the level of the popular press. Thus they are dismayed to learn that on our finer college campuses today Jacques Derrida is already considered pass6 and something called the New Historicism (to be sure, inspired by another Frenchman, Michel Foucault) has largely taken the place of deconstruction. When my enquirers had expected me to talk about Paul de Man or Stanley Fish, they are puzzled to hear me dwell upon Stephen Greenblatt instead. Indeed, although figures like de Man and Fish are the ones usually ment ioned when journalists discuss contemporary literary study, if I were asked to name the most influential literary critic of this generation, it would be Greenblatt. 1 Greenblatt is not a theoretician by temperament; his writings tend to involve detailed analyses of specific texts, like the poems of Sir Thomas Wyatt. Thus to the general public, he does not seem to have contributed to the theoretical controversies that polarize the world of literary critics. Nevertheless, I would argue that Greenblatt has done more than anyone else to shape the way literary criticism is practiced today, and that means how literary criticism is actually written. Indeed, much of Greenblatt 's success and influence is to be traced to the fact that he is a masterful writer. His prose is graceful, fluid, and supple, and above all he knows how to construct an essay with the skill of a professional mystery writer, artfully withholding key facts until just the right moment, timing his revelations perfectly to create an almost hypnotic suspense in the unfolding of his argument. He is also, as I will try to document, extremely savvy in his rhetorical skills, making it difficult for his critics to pin him down and challenge his assertions. It is no wonder then that over the past decade Greenblatt's remarkable essays have become models for literary critics throughout the profession, although unfortunately, as might be expected, what he appears to do effortlessly, his followers tend to do mechanically

Epistemology · Higher education · Historicism · Linguistics · New Historicism · Philosophy of education · Political science · Sociology · American and British Literature Analysis · Crime and Detective Fiction Studies · Law · Modern American Literature Studies · Philosophy

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