Webb Chapter 5

One element of chapter 5 in Literature and Lives that I found to be interesting was Webb's belief that our ideas about Shakespeare (and decidedly most of the British and World literature authors that we tend to focus on in English classrooms) are tainted by the historical tilt that western powers have placed upon the rest of the world. The ways in which high school students in America tend to decipher Shakespeare are significantly more idealized and lofty than how he would be read if the truth about his environment and the culture he lived within were revealed. The average student views Shakespeare as this untouchable author who found a way to gather insightful truths about the world we live in (which, of course, is how we can still get so much meaningful interpretations from reading his works), but the truth the we find in history casts many shadows on this idyllic representation. In actuality Shakespeare's time was alive with political reform and cultural unrest. The two literary theories that Webb explores in this chapter, New Historicism and Postcolonial Studies, attempt to shed light on literary texts by examining them through a lens that focuses on current and noncurrent political, social, and cultural movements, philosophies, and ideas. Rather than concentrating on one moment in time, NH likes to interpret texts using historically significant ideas from the entire history of humankind. PS approaches literature with a firm grasp on the idea that the "first world" countries have shaped the way in which the world has developed over time and also how those countries have influenced the development of "third world" countries. I find this second theory to be especially intriguing because I've never really thought about how the western world has had such an incredible impact on the way that the world has developed. I definitely think that a lot of students could gain something by learning and utilizing these theories in their literature studies.