ABSTRACT
L. Frank Baum writes The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in the context of debates about monetary policy. Begin by situating a text in a particular social and cultural context. The goal is to "reconstruct the situation in which produced". First, Stephen Greenblatt rejects the formalist position that the authors can ignore context and focus instead on how literary devices convey themes. Second, he discourages us from separating literature and history or embracing the idea that history provides a stable background to analyze literary texts. Greenblatt encourages scholars to erase the boundary between the "literary" and "historical backdrop," for every document and practice is a "text" that shares a number of value systems and hierarchies. Greenblatt encourages scholars to think of a text as part of a larger network of institutions, practices, and beliefs. Writers and artists convey their "personal" views, but they work within a pre-existing context that offers and limits the cultural codes, networks, and values they can employ.
