Post-graduate class presentation on the essay 'Interpretation' by Jerome McGann

1. How can we interpret/read a
doc?
 Two major ways of interpreting
 Performative Interpretation
 Scholarly Interpretation
 The essay mainly deals with scholarly
interpretation.
 Performative Interpretation
 Any kind of performance is an interpretation
 Recitation - oldest kind of performance
 Translation – there can be 2 types of translation
 Translation from one language to another (linguistic
trans.)
 Translation from one medium to another

2.  A good translation will resemble an original work
 Pastiches, hoaxes and parodies are also
interpretations
 Parody, hoax etc are ways of „playing‟ with a work.
Ie, they contain „ludic‟ elements.
 They raise the self consciousness and create critical
awareness.
 Performative interpretation is not inferior to
Scholarly interpretion
 Parodies, hoaxes etc are a result of close study
 You cannot parody something which you have not
studied closely.

3. Scholarly Interpretation
 Attempts to access the truth/meaning of a work
 A work can contain multiple versions of
truth/meaning
 Multiple scholarly interpretations are possible
 Therefore, there are no authoritative/final
scholarly interpretations of a work.
 Scholarship is a product of history.
 Scholarship changes/affects/alters the work under
consideration.
 Scholarship is a process.

4. Features of Modern Scholarly
Inter.
 20th C interpretation is associated with
institutions or “interpretive communities”
 The Church, the University, the Court etc
 There are „subcommunities‟ within these
 Institutions are governed by „ideologies‟
 A proliferation of interpretational activity
 New
Criticism, Hermeneutics, Feminism, Psychoanalyti
c Criticism, Marxist
Criticism, Narratology, Historicism etc

5.  Is there anything common between them?
 They are shaped by the sociohistorical
environment.
 All scholarly interpretation starts from
 Materials
 Means of textual production
 Modes
 Interpretation weaves together
 History of the work‟s production
 History of the work‟s reception

6.  An exception: interpretation focused on
technical issues
 Studies of metrical, prosodic characteristics
 Analytic/Descriptive bibliography
 Interpretation is a negotiation between
 Procedural rigour ie, interpretational techniques
 Critical reflection ie, the need to
judge/evaluate/comment upon a work.

7. A model for interpretation
 Double Helix – like DNA
Production History Reception
History

8. A model for interpretation
 Interpretation must focus on Three Categories
A. The Originary B. Secondary Moments C. The immediate
Discursive Moment of Discursive moment of
1. Author Prodn/Reprodn Interpretation
2. Others invested in • Influences which • Requires an
cultural prodn reshape and analysis of the
3. Institutional reconstruct interpreter‟s critical
frameworks of cultural interpretation purposes.
prodn • Discursive fields – • A critical reflection
4. Material/Cultural autopoietic systems on the act of
influences which shape • These are the interpretation
the above various kinds of
5. The specific features of interpretation that
the time of prodn – are available.
temporal phases Eg, various kinds of
theories
Feminism, Psychoan

9. Interpretation by Indirection
 Deformance
 Galvano Della Volpe – a theoryof how
interpretation works.
 Imaginative literature is a type of discourse whose
rationality consists in its exploitation of the
polysemous dimension of language.
 Interpretation also involves a creative use of
language
 Interpretation is an application of scientia
(logic/scientific method) to understand poiesis.

10.  Interpretation is a creative process in which
one type of discourse (scientia) is used to
understand another (poiesis).
 A form of dialectics: “a dialectic of expressive
facts” in which “neither of the elements of the
relation can be reduced absolutely to the
other…for…they…circulate only relatively
within each other, in the diversified unity of an
historical movement”

11.  A gap between the work and its interpretation
– a quid.
 Interpretation is a collection of paraphrases