'New Historicism' is a term coined by an American literary historian and author, Stephen Greenblatt. The term explores as a literary theory that emerged in the 1980s. It emphasizes historical and cultural context. It has explained the literary theory from history, religious studies, political science, and sociology.
In accordance with Stephen Greeblatt, this theory came from the cultural poetics. In his famous quotation, he states, "I collected a bunch of essays and then, out of a kind of desperation to get the introduction done, he wrote that the essays represented something called a 'new historicism'".
Greenblatt expresses that he was influenced from the philosophy of Michel Foucault, a French historian. He says that "from a culture of the contemporary time, location and history which explore the impact to a literary work." This impact makes the "New Historicism." Actually, the thought of literature comes from the history of a culture and society.
'New Historicism' has viewed literature as the reflection of the worldview of a period. This theory says that a text of literature can not only include the cultural aspects but it adds some conversations.
In the later part of the 1960s, the post-structuralist including Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Roland Barthes, and Julia Kristeva challenged to the Old Historicism (both the 'New' and 'Old' Historicism almost are similar). According to the 'New Historicism' and its writers including Stephen Greenblatt and Michel Foucault, "history is textual in many respects."
As a professor of Harvard University, USA, Stephen Greenblatt's study inspires other early new historicists, such as Louis A. Montrose, Walter Benn Michaels, and Catherine Gallagher. Thus, Greenblatt has given pressures on "cultural poetics." He emphasizes the "historicity of texts and the textuality of history," meaning that all writing is culturally specific, and history itself is not a static entity but a dynamic, evolving text.
In contrast, an American historian, Hayden White never goes with the 'New Historicist.' Even, he created a note, "historical work is a verbal structure in the form of a narrative prose discourse.” He has stated, "History is represented to us and it is impossible to access the authentic past due to the rhetoric narration.
In an example of "The Home and the World" is a novel by Rabindranath Tagore. The book explores the contemporary colonial situation of India. Here, in this book, we get the common of 'New Historicism,' provided by Tagore.
In conclusion, New Historicism pays more attention to literary practice than the theoretical construction, and different representatives have different proposals. The 'New Historists' still have the consensus that “the core of new historicism centrally concerns with the relationship between history and text, the commonality between historical and literary texts."