Chapter 9: Cultural Studies: New Historicism

"The essential matter of history is not what happened but what people thought or said about it."-Frederic W. Maitland

This simple quote at the beginning of the chapter set the tone for me. I had never thought about where our history really "came from." We base our beliefs on what really happened hundreds of years ago on the word of men. The biggest thing that I had to ponder on was the fact that men are imperfect, therefore, their word is imperfect. I can only imagine what situations were exaggerated, twisted, or even false. Interpretations of the past and even future will always be open-minded and continued to extend further and further for truth.
I really enjoyed the section about literature and poetry. I personally believe that we can find truth and meaning behind it because those are inner thoughts and situations brought to life on paper and the author is not trying to convince the community of anything. The author is merely showing expression as to the times and situations that they are going through. This could very well be interpreted as truth because the material is so raw that the passion of truth, in my opinion, shows out.