Henriquez,+Fatima

// "We simply do not know what was thought in silence." //
= -Stephen Greenblatt  =

=**__Introduction__**= “Stephen Greenblatt has been called the most influential literary scholarof his generation” (MIT). Thanks to Greenblatt’s contributions in being a scholar, a literary critic and a theorist we can now study literature in a different theory form. In the early 1980’s this figure introduced a new idea called New Historicism. Greenblatt is considered the leader of New Historicism due to his way of thinking about the importance of our past. David Thorburn from Yale University noticed the potential of Greenblatt’s writing, which centered on a combination of historical perspectives rather than New Criticism.

=**__Biography__**= Stephen Greenblatt is a gentleman who was born in Newton, Massachusetts in 1943. “A young man from a small provincial town- a man without inde pendent wealth, and without a university education- moves to London in the late 1580s and, in a remarkable short time, becomes the greatest playwright not of his age alone but of all time.” (Stephen Greenblatt) Greenblatt graduated from Newton High school and continued his education at Yale University where he received his B.A in 1964 and PhD. in 1969. He furthered his education by obtaining a Masters degree from Pembroke College in Cambridge. In 1969 Greenblatt joined the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley. He is currently a University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. He is also the editor of //The Norton Shakespeare,// and prize winning author of many books.

= = = = =__Stephen Greenblatt's New Histohristic Vision__= Greenblatt introduced the term of New Historicism in the early 1980s. His movement of New Historicism focuses on examining the bias in literature and critically analyzing it. Historicism is a way of looking at the past and doubting if everything we read is credible. It involves political, drama, music, art and most importantly past history. This theory focuses on crucial events and how they shape the way we look at text and history back then and now.

This fellow focuses on the Renaissance era and the majority of his works is centered in Shakespeare’s works. “The New Historicism attempts to understand authors in the context, and as the product, of the time in which they lived. It was presented as a much-needed corrective to the sterile formalism of literary criticism in the 1960s and 1970s, the legacy of the New Criticism and its efforts to understand literature purely as literature, that is, without reference to factors or forces outside a narrowly defined aesthetic domain”. (Cantor, Paul pg.5)

In Practicing New Historicism Greenblatt mentions that “The new historicist project is not about “demoting” art or discrediting aesthetic pleasure; rather it is concerned with finding the creative power that shapes literary works outside the narrow boundaries”.(pg.12) Greenblatt has found meaning behind a person’s work, his most famous works are from the Renaissance and Shakespeare. In his books he wants to find all the possibilities that led such famous poets to develop famous works that we still use.

So then, what is the difference between Old Historicism and New Historicism? There are many similarities as well as differences. Both of these theories focus in history. New Historicism requires less historical knowledge to practice it. Old Historicism was a stricter concept that focused on investigating about the major historical events that happened during the seventieth century such as The American Revolution, The Civil War, and more. “Thus a typical Old Historicist study of Paradise Lost might have related Satan's conduct in the convocation in Hell to the actions of Milton's close associate, Oliver Cromwell, in Parliament”. ( Cantor, Paul pg.5) Critics argued that New Historicism was too easy because it’s a theory that does not require much knowledge about the past, yet Stephen Greenblatt has come a long way by proving through his works of the Renaissance and Shakespearean, that New Historicism is indeed a way to shape the way we look at text from our ancient works.

=**__Review of a Single Work__**=

StephenGreenblatt has written a significant number of books, but his most recent work has had a wonderful success. //Will in the// //World, How Shakespeare became Sha////ke////s////peare// was published in 2004 and had a tremendous success. There has been different works written about Shakespeare, yet Stephen Greenblatt’s achievement in this bookis aview of a development of Shakespeare’s art and his life. In //Will in the World, How Shakespeare became Shakespeare,// Greenblatt provides pictures to gain a better understanding of how Shakespeare’s customs, places, and culture was like. Chapter three: The Great Fear from //Will in the World, How Shakespeare became Shakespear////e,// represents the struggle that many families suffered because they had to practice their real religion in secret. “families in early-sixteenth-century England were characteristically fractured, and many individuals were similarly fractured inwardly.. But significant steps were taken in these years to make Catholicism, even in imagination, more difficult” (Greenblatt, Stephen pg.89). Greenblatt mentions that during the 1558 only two religions were practiced, Catholics and Protestants, but only Protestants was permitted, many people such has his mother were forced to pretend they were Protestants, because being a Catholic was considered a crime.

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 * __What do Others Think of him?__**

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Like any other famous scholars and theorists, there are people that admire Greenblatt’s New Historicism and there are also others that prefer different works. In an interview he provided to C-Span Books, he mentions that a lot of scholars do not believe that Shakespeare even existed, yet he mentions that Shakespeare left a lot of evidence of his art and works. “Some might just call this approach shoddy history, and indeed it does require much less historical knowledge to practice the New Historicism rather than the Old. One good anecdote, one semi-plausible homology, and you are in business. This means that the New Historicism has been a bonanza particularly for graduate students, enabling them to give the aura of historical scholarship to their work without their necessarily having any grounding in the techniques of genuine historical research or even any solid grasp of traditional history? As opposed to the despairing voice in T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land that says: "I can connect/Nothing with nothing," the motto of the New Historicism seems to be: "I can connect anything with anything. " (Cantor, Paul pg.5). Scholars, people, and critics will doubt and think that New Historicism is just another theory, yet Stephen Greenblatt has been recognized by other famous theorists such as Stanley Fish, Hayden White, and Homi K. Bhabha.=====

=**__Famous works__**= · Hamlet in Purgatory · Practicing New Historicism (with Catherine Gallagher) · Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World · Learning to Curse: Essays in Early Modern Culture

Shakespearean Negotiations: · The Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England · Renaissance Self- Fashioning: From more to Shakespeare · Sir Walter Ralegh: The Renaissance Man and His Roles · Three Modern Satirists: Waugh, Orwell, and Huxley

**__Links:__**
__**http://cms.mit.edu/news/2008/10/podcast_stephen_greenblatt.php**__
 * __http://youtu.be/rN1eoANmAiI__**


 * References**

Boman, John. "Stephen Greenblatt (1943-).." // Cambridge University Press // 1-4. // Literary Reference // // Center //. Web. 22 Apr 2011..

Cantor, Paul A. "Stephen Greenblatt's new historicist vision ." // Academic Search Premier // 6.4 (2003): 5. Web. 20 2011. .

Gallagher, Catherine, and Stephen Grennblatt. //Practicing New Historicism//. London : The University of Chicago, 2000. 12. Print.

Greenblatt, Stephen. // Will in the World How Shakespeare became Shakespeare //. 1st ed. New York Company : W.W. Norton & Company, Inc, 2004. 89. Print.

Thorburn, David. "Literature, History, Biography." //MIT communications forum//. Ithiel de Sola Pool, 14102008. Web. 17 Apr 2011. .