Ahhhh, hermeneutics. Finally. Oodles of theorizers have mucked up the simple act of understanding what we read. The meaning of a text, they say, is not merely in the text itself. That’s too easy. Somehow meaning gets “situated” around the text, like an aura. Meaning is behind the text -- in the author or, casting the net a bit more broadly, in the community in which the author was intellectually situated. And meaning is in front of the text -- in the mind of the reader, or his or her intellectual community. The text itself sorta drops out of contention and treated as a mere goad to finding “real” meanings.

Similarly, with a piece of art, architecture or music, it is difficult to allow the “thing itself” to just mean something. We mentally jump behind the object as if the biography of its creator offers tantalizing clues to its meaning and worthiness. In doing so we act as if the meaning or value of the object can be found in the intention or mind of its creator, not in the thing itself.

Simultaneously, at those moments when self-awareness pulls us away from the object toward ourselves, we become vaguely aware of our own role as interpreters and observers of the art. To borrow from philosophy – incorrectly! -- the “thing itself” becomes the “thing for me.”

What to do? Can’t we just let the text be a text without self-consciously worrying about our own biases and history? Similarly, can’t we just forget the creator and concentrate on the creation? Tragically, the answer is “no.” There seems to be both a learned habit and innate need to probe the intention and mind of the artist behind the art. I have no idea why.

An anecdote. Many years ago I took a medieval history class in grad school. For the two weeks prior to class, I imbibed medieval history thoroughly loving every book on the reading list. Then class started. Curiously, we rarely talked about medieval history. Instead, we spent ALL of our time discussing the biographies of the authors of the wonderful books I had just read, as if knowing about the author would give a secret insight or necessary clue to the book’s meaning. The content of the book was almost ignored. Of course, the prof may have assumed we’d get the content by ourselves, and so spent our seminar time instilling “nuance” and “significance.” But I remember feeling empty after every class. The innocent joy of reading medieval history turned to muck. (I’m a professor of history, by the way, and those dusty books are on my office shelf. I have never read them again.)

Back to the German Waffen S.S. writer, Guenter Grass. A big part of me – in fact the biggest part of me – wants to scream, “Who gives a shit about his past. It is his ART that matters. It his ART. ART. ART.”

But I have to admit I’m curious about the artist. A wee voice inside of me is curious about Glass. I confess to being fascinated with demented, mentally ill and politically repulsive artists so much so that I wish art could be rendered ahistorical and anonymous, as if discovered on the moon. But even if this happened, I’d have me to contend with me. I’d still be in front of the text, viewing it from afar through lenses specifically ground by my intellectual past.

I miss innocence. I just want to curl up with a book and forget about me and the author and the context and the bias and the agenda and the … I JUST WANT TO READ.

But I can’t.

Kris in AZ

Posted by: kris on September 5, 2006 11:29 AM

Re: the Brit headmaster. Being ahead of your time is hard. It must drive ahead-of-your-timers crazy. "I'm right. Correct. Stating the future conventional wisdom if you losers, er, people, would just open your eyes!"

-On a totally unrelated note to anything ever on this blog, what on earth was that whole Bernardo Bertolucci The Innocents/The Dreamers movie all about? I seriously did not understand one bit of it, but I can't get some of the images out of my head. If this is a recommendation of the film, or utterly horrifying, I cannot say. I am leaning toward utterly horrifying.....

Filmi people, what say you? I mean, WTF*?

*Stands for freak. I don't swear. It's rude (okay, I swear plenty and the residents hear me swear around the microscope and then they laugh at me - discreetly)

Posted by: MD on September 5, 2006 6:55 PM

Oh, there is a post about the Dreamers....I somehow missed it. Maybe I should have searched before I posted, but how boring would that be?

Posted by: MD on September 5, 2006 6:58 PM






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