Analysis Of Stephen Greenblatt's Towards A Poetic Of Culture

The way we read and understand texts is not always effective. Stephen Greenblatt's article “Towards A Poetic of Culture” introduces a new type of literary analysis which he called New Historicism. New Historicism is a more objective way of analyzing texts from the view of the subaltern based on the concepts of Marxism and Poststructuralism. Marxist theory is what Carl Marx created to analyze everything wrong with capitalism and normal society to create an ideology of a new system of social structure that would bring equality to everyone. The Marxist analysis of Capitalism and other social systems can be used for the common good or for the opposite, which is why it is not always effective. Marxism can use the concept of Poststructuralism, which
Greenblatt himself says, “The text is historical and history is textual”(Garren et al. 135). In other words, Greenblatt is saying any text ever wrotten was written during a context of history. There is atime Poststructuralism then uses this knowledge of words to see what the words/phrases are saying together to have a meaning and imply generalizations. New Historicism is not used to the advantage of the hegemonic, but the opposite. It is used to see the subaltern's point of view by analyzing texts objectively both psychologically and economically so no flaws based on disposition can be brought up the way Marxism and Poststructuralism can be. New Historicism is not a concept, it's a method. Text can be analyzed to mean anything using Structuralism, because Structuralism says there are infinite amount of meanings anything can have depending on the group of words and their denotations and connotations. “New Historicism rejects this periodization of history in favor of ordering history only through the interplay of forms of power”(Ed. New Historicism takes the infinite meanings and uses the ones that tell the subaltern's point of view. Greenblatt talks about how Marxists used propaganda to belittle? the subaltern by generalizing them when talking about the
New Historicism takes the good and just ways of analyzing from Marxism and Poststructuralism to arrive at a conclusion of what the reality of the subaltern was in texts where they are being marginalized without being biased and without taking advantage of them. Marxism is not always used to take advantage of the subordinate, but it can, which is the flaw with it. New Historicism is not perfect in terms of being just either, but it comes close to bringing justice because it is objective and nonbiased, and cannot be used for any other purpose other than to bring light to the subaltern’s situation. With New Historicism, the subaltern are able to be