Open Access

Annette Simonis

• The rise of the New Historicism or Cultural Poetics in the nineteen-eighties introduced a new school of cultural theory and inaugurated the end of the so-called New Criticism in English studies at American universities and beyond. As a founding member of the movement Stephen Greenblatt is closely associated with the New Historicism, which emerged in the 1980s. [...] What, then, are the key terms and principal aims of Greenblatt's innovative approach? The contextualization of poetic texts within cultural and political history as well as within an intellectual network of different discourses seemed vital and productive. [...] New Historicists operate by fusing two key issues in criticism since the 1960s: the 'linguistic turn' of post-structuralist and deconstructive criticism, and a return to historical readings. [...] Moreover, Stephen Greenblatt, proves to be very language-oriented in his studies. [...] In the following, Annette Simonis' contribution investigates on which levels and in what different respects Greenblatt focuses on (poetic) language and script as key elements and the foundation stone of modern cultures in his recent book "The Swerve. How the World Became Modern" (2011). Moreover, it explores in how far Greenblatt, in the wake of a recent material turn in the studies of culture, considers the process of writing itself as a crucial component in the analysis of cultural development, which he therefore closely examines in its particular material and aesthetic dimensions. As will become evident, the author is fascinated by Renaissance book culture serving simultaneously as a vehicle of intellectual ideas and a medium of art. It seems rewarding in many respects to analyze more closely Greenblatt's recent publication on the Renaissance. On the one hand the work indicates a careful reorientation in new historicist methodology, reflected in the author's attitude towards the texts themselves, which now takes into consideration the material basics and environments of writing as a cultural technique sui generis; on the other the book testifies Greenblatt's surprising accomplishments as an essayist and storyteller, as he elegantly moves on the borderline between fiction and non-fiction.