This paper is a critical examination of two antithetical theories on the role of authorial intention in the criticism and interpretation of literature: the New Critics’ “intentional fallacy” and E. D. Hirsch’s historicist objectivism. A third way is put forward: a regulative objectivism which emerges as a a result of critical debate.

This paper seeks to explain why Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People constitutes a valid historical work, rather than a religious text. It starts by addressing the nature of historical vs non-historical narrative, focusing on a concept of “genealogy of information.” It couples ideas from narrative theory, historiography, and…[Read more]

The ultimate cause of much historical, social and cultural change is the gradual accumulation of human knowledge of the environment. Human beings use the materials in their environment to meet their needs and increased human knowledge of the environment enables human needs to be met in a more efficient manner. The human environment has a…[Read more]

This essay uses Arnaldo Momigliano’s genealogy of antiquarianism and historiography to propose a new method for engaging the past. The Italian historian Arnaldo Momigliano (1908-1987) traced antiquarianism from its advent in ancient Greece and later growth in Rome to its early modern efflorescence, its usurpation by history, and its transformation…[Read more]