Literary Theory and Historical Understanding

By MORRIS DICKSTEIN

One of the momentous developments in criticism in the past two decades has been the revival of the historical method as a way of studying literature, the arts, and the world of ideas. Scholars who once might have focused on the linguistic patterns of Shakespeare's plays or Wordsworth's poetry have tried instead to explore their roots in the social history of their times. Art critics who, in the very recent past, analyzed Impressionist or Cubist canvases as configurations of light, color,