New Historicism

This critical approach is the one I have seem to have been focused on this semester. From what we learned in class, new historicism has these categories:
-Exploration. Look for related ballads, labels, plays, comics, etc.
-Reading critical analysis' of the time period.
-Thinking of the text in a modern time period.
I found the quote by Bloom in our "Falling Into Theory Book" rather funny.
"Students have become amateur political scientists, uninformed sociologists..." etc.
To some extent, I agree with Bloom on this statement. For example, when I went to check out Othello from the library, there were 20x the amount of critical analysis' on Othello, and it was hard to find the original play! It is good to use new historicism, and beneficial in fact. However, I think some people spend too much effort trying to read the minds of the authors, or to apply it in every context. Some people don't seem to realize how much of their own personal opinion is embedded in their work, and that is when it is taken too far.
At the same time, however, I agree that the text is more personally meaningful when we can apply it to our own lives and dissect the text in new and exciting ways.

villanelle- French poem from the middle ages, consisting of 19 lines
interlard- to insert between; mix
magniloquent-lofty or boastful. Proud