The Text as Socially Contributed and Determined Phenomenon: A General Paper on Inevitable Historicity in Select Shakespearian Plays

Abstract

The literary texts have been put into rigorous investigation over the years. The critical enquiries have themselves undergone tremendous change. Thanks to the amalgamation of divergent disciplines and owing to the massive expansion of intellectual spectrum in the recent past, the reader/audience has been enabled to understand the text from multiple perspectives, which was not sanctified in the liberal humanist phase. 21^st century, despite having grown considerably, and still being driven by the earlier 20^th century investigative ideologies, does and has to remain in its cradle position. Therefore it would be essential to understand Shakespearean text in the light of much enriched critical/theoretical conception of the bygone past. Moreover, the calculative selection from pluralistic discursive formations has to be done to extract the essence which might otherwise be submerged within the text itself. Having hypothesized like that, A few plays of Shakespeare would be chosen to be explicating historical elements by juxtaposing literary text with that of historical document. A sufficient justification would be supplied to establish the reason for opting new historicist approach besides being observed several theoretical ideas. Such comparative method must be invigorated up against the text to demarcate the territory between literary production and historical record, which would prove to highlight the enormous contribution of society at large in making literary production as such. A strenuous effort is to be taken up in showing the circulation of “social energy” inside the artistic work.