Theories of Interpretation: Classical to Romantic Hermeneutics

Symposium, 2004

Armenian Folia Anglistika Vol. 17, Issue 1 (23), 2021, Yerevan, 2021

The aim of this essay is to propose a view of literary translation as "performance", i.e., as both an art and an activity endowed with specific affinities with those of the actor or the musician. Actors and musicians offer subjective interpretations of the dramatic texts and of the musical scripts that they present on stage and in the concert hall. Likewise, the translator presents her/his interpretation and her/his rendering of a specific text to readers whose mother tongue and culture may either be close or remote from the ones of the original. In other words, a translator of artistic literature is 'a performer' and each translation an 'execution' i.e., a unique 'rendering of the script' (T1), and it is both a recognizable prior text (T1) and yet also a specific variation of it (T2). After some theoretical observations on translation (Part 1 of the essay), my thesis will be developed in connection with an interpretation of the character of Bottom, the weaver-actor in A Midsummer Night's Dream, because his experience and 'personality', seem to bear interesting metaphorical affinities with those of the translator as performer of poetic texts (Part 2 of the essay).

XLinguae, 2015

The study analyzes the semantics of the concept of interpretation in the environment of theater communications. Its core is the analysis of the meaning of this term in various understandings-in dictionary references and in the theatrical, theoretical, historical and artistic contexts. It also indicates changes in understanding the content of this term depending on the position of the user. The study outlines not only the main aspects of understanding of this term in the environment of theater communications but also the main features of the theatrical form interpretation.

The Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities, 2017

ABSTRACT: The differences and difficulties found upon doing literary research are analyzed. The fact that researchers also interpret is highlighted as well as the need for sufficient time and freedom to do their research. The use of adequate selection criteria, the subjectivity and intuition of the exegete, as well as the use of concepts such as respect for the literal meaning (Umberto Eco) and the analogy of proportion (Inger Enkvist) are proposed as appropriate guidelines for establishing renovated, but systematic reading of texts. Keywords: literary theory, hermeneutics, research strategies, reading.

Itinerari, 2012

In this article, I will propose a comparison between the speaker’s conversational implicatures during a linguistic interaction and the hidden clues scattered by an author in a text when he wants to communicate something about himself to the reader. This comparison will show that the analysis of the writer’s ability to disclose himself through hidden clues to the reader could be a way to understand what mechanisms the speaker uses in a conversation. In order to demonstrate this, I will take into account the famous Davidson’s article focused on James Joyce’s literary career. In fact, according to Davidson (1989), James Joyce wants to recreate the language partly to be reconnected to himself, expecting the reader to be able to construe him. This reveals that there exists a sort of dialogue between the creations of the “speaker”, i.e. the writer, and the assumptions the reader-interpreter can make when he tries to decipher a text.

As a literary work is reviewed or commented on by a large corpus of critical approaches, stratified lines of interpretation may take shape, which try to appropriate the work in question. This condition can have significant implications for literary translation. The translator’s subjective decisions situate the translation in a matrix of relations with critical readings. This study addresses the theoretical and methodical aspects of the interaction between literary criticism and literary translation by focusing on the historicity of the literary work. The study argues that an interpretive tradition is gradually and cumulatively shaped in the form of metatexts with compatible philosophies. As a result, a literary work may be interpreted according to various traditionalized readings. The study incorporates elements of transtextuality (intertext and metatext) with the temporality-related postulates of hermeneutics, suggesting a holistic analysis method.

Any understanding is accompanied by misunderstandings. There is a simple reason: Contents of what is to be understood have a conventional, communicable, general dimension (otherwise ‘it’ cannot be understood), but must be individually perceived – and individuals are individual. Misunderstanding also happens when ‘understanding’ occurs in communication with others: The understanding of the meaning of utterances of speaker S is limited by the fact that the listener L can only understand what S is saying according to his own understanding. We are inherently prejudiced by our own understanding of ‘understanding’. And we cannot possible know what we don’t understand, because we simply don’t know what we don’t know when we think we understood. We are contingent beings. And we are ignorant of our ignorance by nature. The same applies on situations when we interpret texts.

Cornell University Press eBooks, 2018

W e have seen that "The Author of Beltraffio" can be read as an investigation into the meaning of Wittgenstein's remark from Philosophical Investigations: "Here the term 'language-game' is meant to bring into prominence the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity, or of a form of life." ' James's story "The Lesson of the Master" is also a piece of philosophical fiction, and within its imaginary context ambiguity of aspect applies t0-0 r actually emerges from-both moral and aesthetic description. Indeed, in 'The Lesson of the Master' the distinc tion between moral and aesthetic description is neither clear, nor regular, nor predictable, for what appears initially to be a strictly factual description of a person turns out not to be mor ally inert, so what appears to be a parallel aesthetic description is not evaluatively or judgmentally inert. In both cases, how the interpretative ambiguity is arrived at is itself a product of the rational assemblage of aspects, of characteristics, of the facts and features of a person or of a work of art-where these aspects are often relational in nature-which, taken together, i. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 3d ed., trans. G. E. M.