Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide

New historical and cultural criticism are often considered together because they share many similarities, but they are in fact distinct domains of critical theory.

New Historicism

Tyson begins by contrasting “traditional” historians and “new historicists.” Traditional historians analyze history to find out what happened and why, whereas new historicists analyze how history is interpreted and the ideologies behind those interpretations. 

Traditional historians believe that events have a “linear, causal relationship” and that the arc of human history is progressive, meaning that time flows in one direction, that events are linked, and that the human condition improves over time (242). They argue that this sequence of events can be studied objectively. In contrast, new historicists argue that the study of history is inherently subjective. Further, history is highly complex and nonlinear, and causation is difficult to determine because people, events, and cultural products are mutually constitutive, e.g., people both shape and are shaped by culture. “Subjectivity” is the term given to describe how people navigate the interaction between individual desire and societal norms.

New historicists are heavily influenced by French theorist Michel Foucault’s theories about power. He argued that power “circulates” throughout society through exchanges of goods, people, and ideas. New historicists argue that no single discourse or mode of expression (e.g., science, liberalism, Marxism, etc.) is sufficient to describe “the complex cultural dynamics of social power” (245). Rather, discourses shift, overlap, and compete. 

New historicism treats the historical record as a series of texts that articulate ideas about history through varying discourses that relate to the assertion or circulation of power. One way to think about this is through the saying “History is written by the victors”: The victors assert their power through the historical record by writing about their victory in a way that makes them look good. Using this framework, new historicists treat both primary and secondary sources as “forms of narrative” that “can be analyzed using the tools of literary criticism” (247).

New historicists are particularly interested in studying the histories of “marginalized people” who have often been excluded from the mainstream record, such as cultural minorities or women. They also utilize the anthropological method of “thick description,” or “close, detailed examination of a given cultural production” like games to study personal or private lives (as opposed to the traditional focus on wars, government, etc.; 248). Finally, new historicists practice “self-positioning” to highlight their personal subjectivities (e.g., background, biases, etc.).

New Historicism and Literature

New historicists argue that “literary texts are cultural artifacts” that exemplify the discourses of their time and place (250). Tyson illustrates this mode of analysis through a contrast of questions asked in traditional historical and new historical readings of Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and Beloved by Toni Morrison. For instance, a traditional historical reading of Heart of Darkness might focus on Conrad’s research and documentation, his personal biography, or the historical accuracy of the narrative; for example, how did Joseph Conrad’s “experience in the Congo […] affect his artistic production?” (251). A new historical reading of the same work would focus on how Heart of Darkness articulates discourses of “anticolonialism and Eurocentrism” (252). It might analyze the reception history of the text to assess how it impacted those or other discourses.

Cultural Criticism

Tyson summarizes the many similarities between new historicism and cultural criticism. She then notes that one important difference between the two is that cultural criticism is “much more politically oriented” (254), as it originated out of Marxist criticism. Cultural critics assess all forms of culture, whether high or low, through the lens of how it “transmit[s] or transform[s] ideologies” (254). Cultural critics define culture as a “process” and “lived experience” that is constantly changing (154). They tend to focus on popular culture.

Cultural Criticism and Literature

Tyson summarizes the work of literary historian Stephen Greenblatt. He studied how texts reflect the culture in which they are created and how culture impacts their interpretations. Tyson gives the example that a cultural critic might analyze the “high” cultural work of Heart of Darkness in relation to the “low” cultural work of the film based on the story Apocalypse Now and how the film transmits or transforms the ideologies of the novel (256). Cultural critics may study any cultural products, including advertising, video games, etc., in light of how they reflect the society that created them and/or their impact on that society.

Some Questions New Historical and Cultural Critics Ask About Literary Texts

Tyson provides a series of questions that summarize new historical and cultural criticism approaches to literature, emphasizing that they all involve establishing how a given work “functioned as a part of a continuum with other cultural artifacts from the period” (258):

1. Analysis of a literary work’s interaction with cultural beliefs of the time period it was created

2. Analysis of how a literary work promotes or undermines the dominant ideologies of the time period in which it was created

3. The application of rhetorical analysis to establish how a literary work interacts with literary and nonliterary discourses of a time period

4. How the reception history of a work reflects cultural history

5. Analysis of representation of marginalized groups in a literary work and how it relates to discourses about them historically

The Discourse of the Self-Made Man: A New Historical Reading of The Great Gatsby

In Tyson’s new historical reading of The Great Gatsby, she focuses on the way the novel articulates “the discourse of the self-made man” and how it highlights the contradictions around the figure of the self-made man as both creating history and outside of history (259).

Tyson’s essay opens with a discussion of the political-economic history of the United States in the 1920s and the cultural manifestation of this through the figure of “the self-made man” who can accomplish anything independently, through hard work and discipline. She describes the cultural materials of this discourse at the time, with a particular focus on the “success manual” (self-help books of the time), the speeches/essays of Pittsburgh steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, the Horatio Alger novels, the virtues “extol[led]” in a series of classroom materials called the McGuffey Readers, and the biographies of “famous self-made millionaires” like Carnegie and John Rockefeller (263). She then describes how the character of Jay Gatsby conforms to the stereotypes of the self-made man as expressed in these historical documents, such as his lifelong habit of abstaining from alcohol and physical discipline.

Tyson then argues that the figure of the self-made man itself contains a contradiction. The self-made man is born into poverty. When he becomes successful, he attributes his success to a moral rectitude shaped by the lessons he learned while poor, e.g., how to save money. He then believes that those who are not successful are moral failures. This viewpoint requires overlooking material aspects of history that result in others in poverty not being successful, such as a lack of family support. Thus, she argues, even as the self-made man makes history, he is a figure from outside of it. She does a close analysis of the characterization of Gatsby to support the claim that he likewise represents this contradiction of the self-made man: He is “larger than life” (transcends history) even as he shapes it.

Tyson then notes the persistence of the figure of the “self-made man” in American culture and its romantic attraction. She points to, for example, how “romantic heroes” Robert Redford and Leonardo DiCaprio were chosen to play Gatsby in film adaptions (1974, 2013) to support this claim. She concludes that the character of Gatsby is shaped by the discourses of the self-made man present at the time the novel was written and that the character in turn shapes cultural understanding of that figure.

Questions for Further Practice: New Historical and Cultural Criticism of Other Literary Works

Tyson provides model questions to guide new historical and/or cultural critical analysis. These questions explore how new historical concepts and/or cultural critical concepts, such as discourse and cultural history, can deepen a reader’s understanding of texts. Topics include the following (268-69):

1. Depiction of gendered expectations in The Awakening, with a focus on how the text reinforces or undermines the dominant beliefs about gender in late 19th-century America

2. How Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter interacts with discourse about women’s rights in America in the 1840s

3. The relationship between “The Little Black Boy” by William Blake and discourses around racial equality and abolition in the United Kingdom toward the end of the 18th century

4. The reception history of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, with a particular focus on its frequent banning in American public schools

5. How John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath depicts debates about workers’ rights in America in the mid-20th century and how those compare to popular film depictions of workers’ rights from the same era