The Routledge Companion to Critical and Cultural Theory, 2nd Edition

6HISTORICISM

SIMON MALPAS

 

 

 

 

Defined in the most straightforward terms, one might say that historicist criticism of literature and culture explores how the meaning of a text, idea or artefact is produced by way of its relation to the wider historical context in which it is created or experienced. For historicism, all meaning is therefore historically determined. In other words, nothing means ‘naturally’, eternally or universally; rather, meaning emerges from the languages, beliefs, practices, institutions and desires of particular historically located cultures.

To students who have had much experience of critical, literary or cultural theory, this will probably appear to be a pretty straightforward and even commonsense claim. Nowadays, the ...