Stephen Greenblatt argued in these celebrated essays that the art of the Renaiss
ance could only be understood in the context of the society from which it sprang
. His approach - 'New Historicism' - drew from history, anthropology, Marxist th
eory, post-structuralism, and psychoanalysis and in the process, blew apart the
academic boundaries insulating literature from the world around it. Learning to
Curse charts the evolution of that approach and provides a vivid and compelling
exploration of a complex and contradictory epoch.
