Subversion and Containment Model in New Historicism

Essay from the year 2021 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,5, University of Leipzig, language: English, abstract: This essay will discuss the development of subversion and containment theory and how it has been applied to texts and literary works. In addition, it will focus on the containment mode in Elizabethan England and how this concept has been criticized. The broad meaning of 'Subversion' is the attempt to undermine or change a political system, whereas 'Containment' is the act of attempting to prevent the influence of an opposing ideological power or political system from spreading. Subversion and containment is a concept introduced by the American Shakespearean Stephen Greenblatt, the leading exponent of the New Historicism literary theory. Influenced by Foucault's concept of power, new historicists have been preoccupied with how subversive identities as atheists and sexual deviants are contained by the power they seem to contest.