ABSTRACT
A new method of literary history will reject the uncritical study of sources, influences and biographical data as an end in itself; but it will also refuse to accept the New Critical indictment of the “extrinsic” approach, precisely because the much recommended “intrinsic” study of literature has shown itself equally incapable of coping with the challenge of literature as a process in time. It was an illusion, therefore, to assume that the indictment of philological positivism could refute the tradition of historical inquiry at large. The meaning of literary history today can best be discovered through this past present, or that part of it which — although past —is still present and meaningful in a contemporary frame of reference. Thus, past significance and present meaning engage in a relationship which, in its interdependence, may illuminate either — the past work as against its present reception, and the contemporary interpretation against the historical significance of the work of art.
