Chapter Phenomenology of Critical Theory 5: Phenomenology and New Historicism by Literary Criticism

of perception. Like Heidegger and Sartre, Merleau-Ponty is an existential phenomenologist, in that he denies the possibility of bracketing existence. Phenomenology has had a pervasive influence on 20th- century thought. Phenomenological versions of theology, sociology, psychology, psychiatry, and literary criticism have been developed, and phenomenology remains one of the most important schools of contemporary philosophy.