by Michelle Mclean

Created on: March 06, 2009

Many types of literary criticisms are similar and because many overlap or draw from elements of each other, keeping them straight can get a little confusing.

New historicism and cultural criticism are very similar. New historicism focuses, not on historical facts, which cannot be always be relied upon to be totally accurate, but rather on the interpretations of history and what that tells us about those who did the interpreting. New historians believe that it is impossible for historians to be objective because they are viewing history through the lens of their own society and culture. In other words, their backgrounds color everything they see and interpret. New historians consider history similar to stories, in that history is recorded according to a particular point of view (typically the view of those in power).

New historicism interprets history the way literary critics interpret literary texts. They look at literary works to discover the discourses, or ideologies, at work in the time and place in which those works were written. They view literary works as "cultural artifacts" (Tyson 286). A new historic critic will look at a text to find the cultural conflicts and ideologies that were present in the society which produced the work.

Cultural criticism follows many of the same principles as New historicism, but it tends to be geared more towards political issues and popular culture than new historicism. Cultural criticism draws quite a bit from other forms of criticism, such as Marxism, feminism, African American criticism, etc. Basically, any type of criticism that examines the culture in which the work was written could be defined as Cultural criticism.

Cultural critics do not see a distinction between different forms of culture. For example, "high" culture, things such as the theatre, opera, art, the symphony, aren't considered any more or less important than "low" culture items, such as television, pop music, or stand-up comedians. To a cultural critic, all these forms of culture are equally important.

A cultural critic would look at a literary work to determine what kinds of social behavior the work might promote, what kind of readers might enjoy the work, why, what social understandings the work relies on, if the values of the reader are similar to the values promoted in the work, and other questions that would help connect the work to the culture that produced it and those cultures interpreting it (297).

Source Cited: Lois Tyson. Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide. Routledge: New York, NY, 2006.

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