New Historicism

New Historicism is a literary critical movement, which first developed in the 1980s. The new historical approach emphasizes the cultural context in which text is produced, rather than focusing exclusively on the formal structure of the text itself. New Historicism posits that literary works are not singular or solitary forms, but, instead, a product of different networks of socio-material practices. As such, literary works should be interpreted, not for their universal themes or historical content, but for their meaning as objects embedded in a certain socio-historical milieu. Thus, to understand a literary text, critics need to first understand the author's background and the cultural context in which the work was produced.