New Historicism and “To Autumn”: A Principle in Interpreting Keats’s Poetry

Abstract

Abstract: Since the late 1970s, New Historicism has been playing an instrumental role and making tremendous contributions to the Keats Studies. But when it comes to the interpretation of his “To Autumn”, the theory of New Historicism may cause two fundamental theoretic limitations, namely, the overemphasis on social reality and the negligence over the effect of imagination. Citing “To Autumn”and a few other Keats’s poems as examples, this article argues that the application of the theory of New Historicism in the study of Keats’s poetry should adhere to one basic principle: take full advantage of its insights in reconstructing the social-historical context, but limit our reliance on it in textual analysis and interpretation.

Key words: Keats, "To Autumn", New Historicism, text interpretation, principle

Lu Wei. New Historicism and “To Autumn”: A Principle in Interpreting Keats’s Poetry[J]. Foreign Literature Studies, 2019, 41(6): 112-120.

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