Literature and Lives Ch. 5

I was torn when i read this chapter because new historicism, and Webb mentioned in this chapter about teaching Shakespeare, that in order to fully understand a text you have to look at the time period in which it was written and take everything that was going on during that time and apply it to why the book says what it says and why it is written that way. I believe that this is true, and especially for The Tempest which Webb describes teaching in this chapter because there was so much going on in London and the rest of the world at the time Shakespeare wrote his works. I also believe that it is a very powerful tool to use the history from that time period to support what was going on in the text and it can make the learning experience much more powerful for the students if they have a form of background knowledge about either a specific time in history, or a certain place in the world. But, as much as i agree with all this, i also want to just believe that some works were written without a deeper intent, and just written for pure enjoyment. I sometimes feel that if you read too much into the history, or purpose behind the words, you lose the story. it is almost like a lot of new historicism views are over analyzing the texts, and get away from the overall picture the author might have been trying to get across. I am not saying you shouldn't analyze a piece of work, but i think there is a fine line, and you have to find the happy medium. i can see both sides of the story, and don't know which one i agree with more.