SCE REPORTS 6 SUPPLEMENT: ANNOTATED CHECKLIST '"BEYOND INTERPRETATION*' SCE REPORTS SCE REPORTS 6 Supplement SCE REPORTS is published by The Society for Critical ExchanDe, Inc., a not for profit corporation organized to FALL, 1979 promote cooperatnve inquiry in criticism. All rights for material published in SCE REPORTS are retained by the authors. Address inquiries to: Patricia H. Sosnoski, Managing Editor, 5384 Coulter Lane, Oxford,Ohio 45056 For information concerning SCE, write to: SC E 6273 19th Ave. NE Seattle, Washington 981 15 SCE gratefully acknowledges the ossistance of the English Departments of Miami University and The University of Washington in the preparation of this issue. SCE REPORTS SCE REPORTS Richard A. Barney Hiami University -of Reading (Baltimore: John Hopkina Univ. Press, BEYOND INTERPRETATION: AN ANNOTATED CHECKLIST 19781, Chapter 1; and Morse Peckham, Explanation --and Power (New York: The Seabury Press, 1979), Jonathan Culler, in response to an inquiry Chapters 1 and 2. But a consideration of these for background articles which might elucidate his works would go beyond the scope of the present essay, "Beyond Interpretation," wrote that com- discussion. piling such a checklist ". .would be of no I have organized the checklist under five help. What I was arguing was that critics have ireadings: (I) Beyond Interpretation; (11) New assumed that their task was to interpret literary Critics on Interpretation; (111) Other Theories works. If there were numerous articles that ex- of Interpretation; (IV) Overviews; and (V) SCE plicitly argued that this was the task of criticism, Members on Interpretation. that would indicate that it wasn't an assumption I. Beyond Interpretation at all." I do not wish to quarrel with Professor Culler. Critics appear increasingly dissatisfied His point is well taken and I have used it as with the predominance of interpretation in a guide. It seems evident, nopetheless, that the practice of criticism. Whether their numerous critics have had their consciences arguments are "against" interpretation, or for pricked, so to speak, because of his and other going "beyond" it, many critics are calling for challenges to traditional critical assumptions-- a new focus for literary investigations. that many critics are rising to the occasion Jonathan Culler, in "Beyond Interpretation: by defending interpretation. With both these The Prospects of Contemporary Criticism,'' Compar- views in mind, I have made the goal of this -ativeserves Literature, that the Mew 28,Criticism, No. 3 (1976), with fts244-56, commitment ob- checklist first, to outline the nature of the assumptions about interpretation, second, to the autonomy of the literary text, has benefited to survey the responses of those critics who the teaching of literature, but he attacks its have attempted to defend interpretation, and "most important and insidious legacy," which third, to present a few of the arguments that is the "widespread and unquestioning acceptance view interpretation as secondary. My choice of of the notion that the critic's job is to inter- articles and books has been selective, but, pret literary works" (p. 246). Instead, he I hope, representative. maintains that "while the experience of literature The participants in this session have been may be an experience of interpreting works, in very helpful with suggestions for the checklist. fact the interpretation of individual works is However, I have not annotated references they only tangentially related to the understanding of supplied where they go beyond the purpose of literature. To engage in the study of literature this checklist. Eugene Goodheart cites Roland is not to produce yet another interpretation of Barthes' essay "What is Criticism?", 1963, in King Lear, but to advance one's understanding of Essais Critique, as formative for an "anti-inter- the conventions and operations of an institution, pretive" outlook. Barbara Herrnstein Smith's a mode of discourse" (p. 246). suggestions for understanding her use of the term Literary criticism should focus its attention "interpretation" include: Wolfang Iser, The Act on a number of unanswered problems: (1) the role SCE REPORTS SCE REPORTS The type of literary study which structuralism of literature in society or social consciousness; helps one to envisage would not be primarily (2) its "historical relation to other forms of interpretation. Rather than a criticism discourse through which the world is organized"; which discovers or assigns meanings it would (3) a formulation of an "apposite account of the be a poetics which strives to define the role of literature in the psychological economies" conditions of meaning . .The study of lit- of writers and readers; (4) the effect of fictional erature, as opposed to the perusal or discourse; and (5) a "typology of discourse and discussion of individual works, would become a theory of the relations (both mimetic and non- an attmept to understand the conventions which mimetic) between literature and other modes of make literature possible (p. 128). discourse which make up the text of intersub- jective experience" (p. 247). Through an analysis of verbal behavior, Barbara Culler contends that three promising attempts Herrnstein Smith examines the nature of literature, to break away from New Criticism have failed to challenging Culler's structuralist assumptions. In "combat the notion of interpretation itself" her book On the Margins of Discourse: =Relation- (p. 247). Northrop Frye, in his Anatomy of ship of Literature s Language (Chicago: Univ. of Criticism, posits the need for a "'coherent and Chicago Press, 19781, she first makes a distinction comprehensive theory of literature'," but his between "natural" and "fictive" utterances. Natural proposals ultimately are only used as methods of utterances are verbal acts characterized as "occur- archetypal interpretation. The second attempt, ances" that are caused by, and in response to their psychoanalytic criticism, has also failed to historical contexts (p. 15); fictive utterances, resist the tendency to be used merely "as a however, are not historcally unique "events", but, method of interpretation for texts which contain governed by their linguistic structures, are special oddities" (p. 250). Stanley Fish, using representations of natural utterances (p. 24). Thus his "affective stylietics," focuses his study there are distinct interpretations. A listener on the act of reading, but then attempts to use interprets a natural utterance by inferring its this approach for a new way to interpret texts motivational, temporal, and spatial contexts. For (see Fish). interpretating literature, the reader must draw Critics such as Jameson, Hartman, Bloom, from the linguistic structure of the text, his and de Man, however, have thrown off the inter- "experiences of the world," and acquired,knowledge pretive bent to begin a "reinventing [of] literary about natural utterances (p. 36-37). The literary history," and "to produce a theory of literature work presents the opportunity for the reader to as a conceptual space" (p. 255). Interpretation, engage in "cognitive play" about its meanings; especially for de Man, is "in fact literary history, although he can "never 'finally' understand a and in this context it "is always necessary error," poem," he can return to consider its potential thus these critics move on to more profitable meanings (p. 124). areas of literary study. With these assumptions, Smith contends that A year earlier, in Structuralist Poetics the "ethics" of scholarly interpretation do not, (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1975), Culler as E.D. Hirsch maintains (see Hirsch), prescribe argued that that literary critics privilege the ferreting out SCE REPORTS SCE REPORTS of authorial intention, but that they acknowledge Ihab Hassan also argues for a reassessment that their interpretations are inextricably tied of literary criticism's traditional views in to the critic's cultural setting (p. 151). Thus, "The Critic as Innovator: A Paracritical Strip both historicist "explications" and individual in X Frames," Chicago Review, 28, No. 3 "readings" contribute to "the pleasure and interest (Winter 1977) ,= -sent8 a provocative we take in our cognitive engagement" with literature case for the critic's role as both analyst and (pp. 152-53; see Hancher). artist. Using the ideas of Wilde, de Gourmont, and Turning to the use of linguistics in literary Sartre to enforce his stance, Hassan argues--as theory, Smith exmaines the work of "new stylists" do Fiedler and de Man--that the critic, in writing such as Donald Freeman and Stanley Fish, and his discourse, is both the perceiver of a lit- structural studies by Jonathan Culler and John erary work, and the creator of his own "artwork" Rutherford. A stylistic analysis, in studying (pp. 11-15). He, as innovator, should recognize "syntactic strategies," brings the reader into his "Freedom" to create in critical discourse consideration, but in fact it only "attaches a (see Hancher). This freedom must also be com- new piece of apparatus [reader response] onto the plemented with "an erotic sense of Style," a machine (here an illfitting. .*.Russian and Czech feeling for the artistic use of language that is Formalism)" (p. 160). A comprehensive theory free of jargon, and "an intuition of the New," the about readers and language is lacking. Although ability to look forward to innovation in criticism structuralist methods yield insightful conclusions (pp. 16-17). Hassan points out that art, in about