Toward a New Historicism

Wesley Morris

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780691619972, 9780691646824
• eBook ISBN: 9781400870417
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

Assessing major critics from Vernon Parrington to Murray Krieger, Wesley Morris points the way to a "new historicism." He outlines traditional historicist interests in American literary theory and draws from them the foundation for a vital new study of literature. As Mr. Morris shows, however, the new historicism moves beyond—necessarily using the most recent developments in linguistics, anthropology, psychoanalysis, the psychology of perception and literary response—to see the aesthetic relationship between the work and its context.

Originally published in 1972.

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Preface
• Contents
• Part I The American Historicist Tradition
• Part II The Rediscovery of Historicism
• Notes
• A List of Works Cited
• Index