【正文】 ower of Hamlet. On the whole, the author would do a research on Shakespeare’s Hamlet from the perspective of New Historicism in order to show the important value of this play to analyze interinfluence between the play and the historical context of the Elizabethan Era, and to approach again to the relationship between history and text.2. An Introduction to New Historicism The definition of New Historicism According to the New World Encyclopedia, “New Historicism is an approach to literary criticism and literary theory based on the premise that a literary work should be considered a product of the time, place, and historical circumstances of its position rather than as an isolated work of art or text”. New Historicism suggests literature must be studied and interpreted within the context of both the history of the author and the history of the critic. New Historicists aim simultaneously to understand the work through its historical context and to understand cultural and intellectual history through literature, which documents the new discipline of the history of ideas. Unlike previous historical criticism, which limited itself to simply demonstrating how a work reflected its time, it evaluates how the work is influenced by the time in which the author wrote it. It also examines the social sphere in which the author moved the psychological background of the writer, and the books and theories that may have influenced him or her. In New Historicists’ eyes, “a text can have neither a unified ideology nor an entirely aesthetic function” (Colebrook 2425). Major theories of New Historicism New Historicism borrows the “Power Theory” from the famous PostStructuralist Michel Foucault to analyze in depth the detailed relations between history and text. In Foucault’s theory, power refers the relations of domination and resistance which saturate our social, political and cultural relations, but it can also refer to the ways in which power is a productive, even pleasurable, part of our existence. It is everywhere。 not because it embraces everything, but because it es from everywhere (Foucault 93). Obviously, “power” here has a much broader application than the words like “politics” and “economy”, which are used by the traditional historicism. “Power also needs to have subversion, otherwise it would be without the opportunity to justify itself, and to make itself visible as power” (Brannigan 8). As a result, certain text could be subversive to some extent, in the interest of power. Foucault39。s principal interest is how power diffuses itself in systems of authority and how it affects of truth produced within discourses which in themselves are neither true nor false. In New Historicists’ opinion, literary texts are placed in the specific historical context and related to other nonliterary texts which constructed within other specific historical context。 similarly, history is regarded as a text of interrelated contexts. “Different New Historicists may have different inclinations to historicity and sexuality” (Zhu G 260). This is just the famous New Historicist dictum of “historicity of text and textuality of history”, which based on the New Historicist Louis Montrose’s theory. In Louis Montrose’s most famous dictum, the new orientation to history in literary studies may be characterized as a dynamic dialogue between literature and history and it has a reciprocal concern with “the historicity of texts and the textuality of history”. History can influence text and in the meanwhile, it can also be influenced by text and is constituted by various texts. “The relationship between history and text remains in the centre of the New Historicist arguments” (Zhu G 206).Another important theory New Historicism has established is about the “writer”. Stephen Greenblatt argues that the writer as a subject is always doing “selffashioning” within the historical context. We can understand the key point of this “Writer Theory” from the meaning of the word “subject”. “Subject” can refer to a person or a thing which can perform action according to its own will. It can also be used as an adjective, having the meaning of “to be submissive and governed by others”. So to be a “subject”, one has to be both “dynamic” and “submissive”. Since the “writer” has bee a both dynamic and submissive “subject”, then what role does the writer play in creating a specific work of art? “Negotiator” who has to negotiate with the historical context to create a “currency” (text) that is valid for a profitable “exchange”. Thus “the work of art is the product of a negotiation between a creator or a class of creators, equipped with a plex, munally shared repertoire of conventions and the institutions and practices of society” (qtd. in Veeser 1989 12).3. Hamlet—the Product of Shakespeare’s Negotiation with the Historical Context From the New Historicists’ point of view which has been discussed in the previous chapter, work of art can be seen as a product of negotiation between its creator and the historical context. Applying this theory to the study of Hamlet, we can argue that when Shakespeare was creating the play Hamlet, he was in fact, negotiating with the historical context. On one hand, he was a dynamic initiator of action who had his own sharply defined identity and interests。 on the other hand, he was a submissive subject under the control of the historical context who had to yield his own initiative to the mon and acceptable institutions of the society. The dynamic role Shakespeare played in creating Hamlet Shakespeare, a secret Catholic sympathizer We can summarize the dynamic role Shakespeare played with the details in this play. Greenblatt has made a name for himself both as a preeminent Shakespeare scholar and as one of the founders of the “New Historicist” approach to literary criticism. Central to his approach is the notion that not only does history affect literature, but literature itse