Essays on Historical Criticism

The story of “Theft” written by Katherine Anne Porter takes place in New York City during the 1920’s. This unnamed female protagonist discovers that her purse, made of gold cloth, is missing. As the mid 20 year old woman ponders, she realizes she had her...

The Torah: Book Review In Kaminsky and Lohr’s book, The Torah, they provide a helpful and succinct analysis of the Torah’s structure, interpretation, and meaning. Simply divided into two sections, general overview of the whole Torah and synopses of the five individual books, the work...

Othello: Iago – Manipulative, Racist, Arrogant, Presumptuous William Shakespeare’s Othello play depicts Iago as a manipulative, racist, arrogant, and presumptuous character. Concerning the trait of manipulation, Iago causes Brabantio to believe that Othello has forcefully married Desdemona. Regarding the trait of racism, Iago refers to...

New Historicism and “I Stand Here Ironing” Tillie Olsen’s short story “I Stand Here Ironing”, appears to be a byproduct of an oppressed, single, working-class mother. With many elements also containing feminist influences, it would make sense to take a Feminist or Post-Feminist approach to...

In his book, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, Dominic Crossan critically and radically challenged the traditional view of Jesus of Nazareth. Crossan subjected the four Gospels into critical evaluation and he employed the method of historical criticism in his attempt to find out whether the main...

Traditional Approaches Literature did not begin being studied in classes in the 1920s. The first approach to appear was the traditional approach. This may be seen as the “old” historicism in contrast to the post-modern new historicism. Historical criticism is common in the traditional approach...