Reconstructing historicism

Abstract

Abstract All critics are historicist up to a point. The pastness of the texts that we interpret demands accommodations of critical approach to negotiate historical differences. Equally, if a work of literature speaks to us now with a contemporary relevance, that inevitably plays some part in our evaluations. So far, this give and take is only what one would expect. Historicism becomes more interesting when it addresses questions of perennial philosophical importance, such as the relations between fact and fiction in history and aesthetics. Are historical and aesthetic discourses necessarily opposed in their tasks, or do they offer each other mutual support? Traditionally, the aptness of literary skills to the evocation or re-creation of the past has helped to distinguish historical explanations from scientific ones, for which fictional assistance is usually thought to be a disadvantage.