Frank Kermode on New Historicism and Stephen Greenblatt

Stephen Greenblatt is the author of a number of books, one of them 𝘏𝘢𝘮𝘭𝘦𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘗𝘶𝘳𝘨𝘢𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺 (2001), an important book in Hamlet studies and also in Shakespeare and Religion. He is also one of the scholars most associated with New Historicism.

Greenblatt's approach in this book, exploring many manifestations of the long history of the idea of purgatory in literature and art, influenced my own approach in many ways:
- When I go digging for historical associations that could have made very meaningful the choice of sentinel names (Francisco and Bernardo), this is like Greenblatt's approach.
- When I dig for famous examples of "poison cup" known in Elizabethan times, like King Aegeus knocking from his son's hand the cup poisoned by Medea, this follows a well-worn path that Greenblatt trod before me.
- When I explore various pre-1600 paintings of the boy Jesus, lost in Jerusalem, found astonishing the elders in the temple - to shed light on a Hamlet allusion after "The Mousetrap," again, it's like Greenblatt has done.

Some days my motto is, "WWGD?" (What would Greenblatt do?)

- A brief note on New Historicism from scholar and literary critic Frank Kermode:

"Broadly speaking, New Historicism is a way, or a bundle of ways, of writing about literary history which incorporates insights provided by other intellectual disciplines, refuses to isolate literature from other forms of discourse, and assumes that the entire culture, including many aspects of it generally overlooked by conventional history—for instance, anecdotes concerning the lives and behavior of ordinary people—can be regarded as text, with all of its parts somehow interrelated."

- Frank Kermode
"Art Among the Ruins"
Reviewed: Practicing New Historicism
by Catherine Gallagher and Stephen Greenblatt
University of Chicago Press
July 5, 2001 issue
The New York Review
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2001/07/05/art-among-the-ruins/

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Disclaimer: If and when I quote or paraphrase bible passages or mention religion in many of my blog posts, I do not intend to promote any religion over another, nor am I attempting to promote religious belief in general; only to explore how the Bible and religion influenced Shakespeare, his plays, and his age.
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My current project is a book tentatively titled Hamlet’s Bible, about biblical allusions and plot echoes in Hamlet.

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