India, May 17 -- How did you arrive at the theory of New Historicism, which you espoused in the 1987 essay, Towards A Poetics of Culture?

When I was at the university, the overwhelmingly dominant approach to literature and culture was via New Criticism, which I had a deep immersion into. We were told that we shouldn't be interested in anything outside the text. I remember reading Alexander Pope, and coming across an extremely misogynistic and unpleasant reference to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. And I said, "Who is Lady Mary Worley Montagu?" I was told that wasn't a relevant question.

In the 1960s, after I graduated from Yale, I went to Cambridge on a grant, and one of my teachers was Raymond Williams. I'd never encountered a Marxist nor h...