The New Historicism in Renaissance Studies

new kind of activity is gaining prominence in Renaissance studies: a sustained attempt to read literary texts of the English RenaisA sance in relationship to other aspects of the social formation in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. This development, loosely called the “new history” and flourishing both in Europe and America, involves figures such as Stephen Greenblatt, Jonathan Dollimore, Alan Sinfield, Kiernan Ryan, Lisa Jardine, Leah Marcus, Louis Montrose, Jonathan Goldberg, Stephen Orgel, Steven Mullaney, Don E. Wayne, Leonard Tennenhouse, Arthur Marotti, and others.’ Journals such as E L H , English Literary Renaissance, Representations, and L T P : Journal of Literature Teaching Politics regularly publish “new history” pieces. In short, a critical movement is emerging, and in this essay I want to look at the new historicism both to account for its popularity and to try to define what, if anythng, is new about its approach to the historical study of texts and then to examine some instances of new hstorical criticism.