The Occupation of Form: (Re)theorizing Literary History

Abstract

If we were to start a journal today and name it, say, American Literary History, what kind of journal would it be? That is not a rhetorical question, but a very real one. However, it is not the purpose of this essay to answer that question fully, or with any confidence of landing on the “right” answer. Rather, I pose the question not only as a way to get us to think about the idea of writing an American literary history today, but also to compare and contrast that activity to the inaugural ethos and spirit of American Literary History 20 years ago. More precisely, I want to ask if that ethos might be perpetuated today, under our specific historical conditions and bearing in mind not only the persistence of certain questions that were present at the founding of this journal, but also questions that have arisen subsequently. The historical moment in literary studies 20 years ago could be characterized as the burgeoning of “theory”; the ethos of the founding of American Literary History included to no small degree not only a receptivity to new critical and theoretical perspectives, but also the belief that these perspectives could themselves serve as vehicles for retrieving elements that had been effectively banished from the study of literary texts. One could legitimately call these elements individual and social history.