About the Book: New Historicism and Cultural Materialism
New historicism and cultural materialism emerged in the early 1980s as
prominent literary theories and came to represent a revival of interest in
history and in historicising literature. Their proponents rejected both
formalist criticism and earlier attempts to read literature in its historical
context and defined new ways of thinking about literature in relation to
history. This study explains the development of these theories and demonstrates
both their uses and weaknesses as critical practices. The potential future
direction for the theories is explored and the controversial debates about their
validity in literary studies are discussed.