Assessing major critics from Vernon Parrington to Murray Krieger, Wesley Morris points the way to a "new historicism." He outlines traditional historicist interests in American literary theory and draws from them the foundation for a vital new study of literature. As Mr. Morris shows, however, the new historicism moves beyond—necessarily using the most recent developments in linguistics, anthropology, psychoanalysis, the psychology of perception and literary response—to see the aesthetic relationship between the work and its context.

Originally published in 1972.

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