Summary: Cohen, “Generating Literary Histories”
Editor’s Note: For this assignment, I needed to read and summarize the published piece or content listed below, and then provide a response or assessment of the writing.
Summary
Cohen delves into how literary history was written. He believes that the general population has acknowledged certain portions of history as being repressed, but some parts of history were repressed to such an extreme degree that history is incomplete and inaccurate. Cohen cites feminists and black literary critics as examples. He believes that historicists today cannot easily correct those inaccurate histories because the writings of previous authors are considered accurate and rewritings of history would not be believed. New historicists must also uncover historical texts that were hidden or repressed and prove them to be accurate, which poses another obstacle. New historicists have varying influencers in their work, and they don’t necessarily agree if one group of people in a specific timeframe should be limited to only one history, but they all agree that history needs to be reviewed and, likely, rewritten to include the portions that were initially repressed. New historicists must also review new discourses throughout history, and when and why they were introduced. Whether it was sermons or pop culture writing, Cohen believes new historicists need to consider all written literature in their historical analysis because no objective or singular history exists.
Response
Cohen addressed a fun topic that is interesting to consider, but also one that I can only imagine to be frustrating to no end. I’m not sure that revising histories to include more accurate information and less inaccurate information is possible or could ever be completely resolved in any fashion. I think histories definitely have the potential to be revised to include portions that were repressed or to delete portions that were purposefully added even though the content was false, but I don’t know that a history could ever be full or complete insomuch as it includes histories from every perspective or even a revised general perspective that was initially repressed by the ruling class. I think this is especially true for historical periods that no longer have an active/living, reliable, and unbiased voice to verify or deny any suggested new historical revisions. I thought Cohen’s examples of feminist and black literary history were great examples of histories that are more likely to be inaccurate on large scales, but again, both examples begged the question: how can they truly be revised to be more accurate and inclusive when those times are long since past? With new historicists dependent on unearthing new or hidden literary works—of any kind—it seems like a long shot to me that those histories will ever be rewritten to be more inclusive of more peoples’ perceptions of any era. The idea of including all discourses, rather than limiting analysis to only published literary discourse seems like an obvious inclusion that should have been in practice from the beginning of any historicist’s analysis, and I was surprised to read that all types of discourses were not previously considered in a literary analysis. However, at this point in time, without the original authors to interview or clarify a new discourse choice or previously unearthed written text, I am again puzzled as to how historicists will be considered successful in their endeavors. Plus, even if a historicist did find hidden writings or new discourses for a specific time period, the number of interpretations taken from the text can be so great and equally contradictory that I don’t know that much resolution would come of the text. After considering the obstacles and practical complications to such an endeavor, I started to think that rather than focusing on rewriting or revising history, it seems to me that historicists would be better suited to establish a more all-inclusive methodology for capturing an all-encompassing literary history moving forward. In that sense, they would create a process for documenting the issues of the time, how those issues were addressed, and why authors chose to address certain issues and not others. They would also create a list of existing and potential discourses for themselves and future historicists to use and consider as those historicists begin to write about any particular literary history. This way, literary history is more likely to include a greater number of accuracies than inaccuracies, as well as a greater number of historical perceptions, making it more comprehensive in its totality.