Historicism: The History and Meaning of the Term

In the last few years a considerable number of books and articles have appeared in Germany, the United States, and Italy on the topic of historicism. There is, however, no consensus in this literature on the meaning of the term. 1 Thus three very different discussions have been carried on simultaneously, pursuing different themes and only occasionally intersecting. A number of writings have dealt with the so-called crisis of in the context of the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. Here historicism has come to be identified with relativism and loss of faith in the values of modem Western culture. This relativism has been considered a permanent aspect of intellectual life under the conditions of the modem world. A very different literature has identified historicism more narrowly with the historiographical outlook and practices of nineteenthand to an extent twentieth-century scholarship in the human sciences. Finally the term New Historicism has been used recently in a still different context by literary and cultural critics in America. In this essay I shall restrict myself to an examination of the literature on the first two uses of the term.