On interpreting literature.

THE CONFLICT OF INTERPRETATION

PARTISANS IN THE CONFLICT of interpretation adopt different positions over what literature ought to be studied, and with what comes why and how. There's no claim to objectivity here, which is fine since the conflict is a clash of subjectivities. But, even among the subjectivities, evidence is still important when interpreting literature; and evidence doesn't come pre-packaged with a theory of reading. Evidence is more straightforward in scientific writing; where a hypothesis or question is stated at the beginning; where there's a prescribed structure of introduction, methods, results, discussion and conclusion; where legitimacy depends on analysing and presenting and discussing sufficient evidence if not to convince then to encourage the reader to think about the hypothesis or question differently.

The scientific method wouldn't be hard to approximate in literary studies, where the most important evidence comes from the text being critiqued rather than from a theory of what the text represents or means. In literary studies there has long been something similar to the scientific method: close reading. But since the ascendancy of literary and cultural theory, some partisans in the conflict plead a special case. They object to close reading, argue in favour of theory, and don't feel evidence is too important. When a discussion about interpreting literature occurs, I advocate three principles of hermeneutics: the science of interpretation; the study of behaviour and institutions.

First, while prejudice isn't something we're comfortable admitting to--it's something other people have--prejudice is a normative part of understanding. What's confronting to those who believe in objectivity--and promote the goal of either abolishing prejudice or converting everyone to their prejudice--is the proposal that some prejudices are true while others are false. The task of reason is to distinguish between legitimate-and illegitimate prejudices, but the broad thrust of post-Enlightenment critique is to demonstrate how reason has been used to validate a wide range of prejudices--sometimes with horrifying consequences. As the dictum attributed to Nietzsche says, reason masks the will to power. Conrad demonstrates this in Heart of Darkness through the character of Kurtz.

Second, as far as literature is concerned, interpretation is best conducted with an eye towards something called the hermeneutical circle. In this circle there are three smaller circles that overlap, which represent the horizons of author and text and reader. In the first, the author is intentional and this intentionality is reflected in the text. In the second, the text has a life that extends beyond the author's intention and signals to the reader the ways in which it seeks to be read. In the third, the reader is expected to dialogue with their horizon, which

requires them to recognise their prejudices (as prejudices) and try to open out to the horizons of author and text. The goal of the hermeneutical circle is open-ended. It seeks a fusion of horizons of author and text and reader.

Third, in any act of interpretation, the parts of a text need to be read in relation to its whole, just as the whole of a text needs to be read in relation to its parts. If we critique the Gospel of Matthew to better understand its Hebraic character, as a book written by Jewish Christians for a Jewish readership, we need to examine every verse and pericope in relation to the gospel as a whole and allow the gospel as a whole to inform what each verse or pericope might mean. If we critique The Eye of the Storm to better understand its post-metaphysical character, as a book written by a late-modernist author interrogating the varieties of religious experience within the Western meta-narrative, then the same process applies.