Abstract: Historicism usually appears as a confusing concept in scholarly writings. Several thinkers have made definitions of this term in both its strict and loose senses, and it is now usually used in its loose sense — it can refer to any methodology in which a certain entity is examined by placing it in a specific time and place. Stephen Greenblatt's major works share the spirit of historicism in its loose sense in that he has put into question the possibility of building an abstract theoretical system independent of time and space. Greenblatt was accused of having shied away from examinations of the differences between different stages in historical evolution, yet he has taken into account how things change in history as well — his New Historicism can by no means be separated from historicism in spite of his reluctance to link the two.

Key words: historicism, Stephen Greenblatt, New Historicism, historical evolution