No interpretation necessary ISMLL 160-70

In his essay “Interpretation” Jerome McGann studies the different approaches in the interpretation of text—scholarly, performative, and by indirection. Though ultimately McGann supports the idea that any interpretive process is “open-ended” he recognizes that within the scope of the various critical approaches to interpretation, meaning and the derivation of meaning can be multifaceted, offering present-day scholars (and students) a barrage of methods for discovery. McGann offers that, “In the experiment of interpretation, meaning is initially important as a catalyst in the investigative action. When the experiment has […] finished, meaning reappears in a new form, as the residues left behind for study and analysis” (168). So the search for meaning is an ongoing process, where the meaning that was once discovered becomes an aspect of a whole new meaning to be realized. McGann sides with Ford Madox Ford when he called interpretation, “a game that must be lost.”

So by repeatedly losing a previous interpretation of a text we win with the application of a new one. Only the victory is (and should be) short-lived because we know that when an interpretation is put out there it becomes subject to critical analysis and eventually a re-interpretation all together. McGann explains that the highest level of interpretive scholarship is called the “definitive edition” (162). In class, we also took some time looking for some definitive work available to us. My question is, If interpretation is an open-ended game, then exactly how definitive is something labeled definitive? I guess it’s as definitive as an interpretation can get. Or, scholars feel like they’re done with interpreting a certain work and are satisfied with what they’ve agreed upon (like beating a dead horse, or better yet, looking for fruit in an orchard already harvested multiple times). If we never labeled anything “definitive” then we run the risk of over-interpreting—or taking a text to a place it has no business being. So before interpretations start getting too absurd, better to stop the bleeding while the text at hand still has something definitive to offer. It turns out that the processes of finding meaning themselves are open to interpretation as well. So while in this storm of interpretation, find solace in my assertion that for this blog, no interpretation necessary. It’s just a blog.