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102 R.P. BILAN should yearn. What is needed is a pluralism which recognizes the metafictional element in all theories, and therefore allows groups of texts to determine the kind(s) of criticism appropriate to themselves. 'We Interpreters' R. P. BILAN P.O. juhl. Interpretation Princeton: Princeton University Press 1980. 332. $20.00 Stanley Fish. Is There a Text in This Class' Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press 1980. 394. $17.50 In the midst of the current ferment about the nature and grounds of interpretation the field is in danger of being swept by those - Roland Barthes, jacques Derrida and his Yale disciples (and aU their epigoni), Harold Bloom, and, most recently, Stanley Fish - who argue against any notion of a determinate text and any notion of an objective or 'correct' interpretation. Derrida's argument that there is only the 'free play' of the signifier, Bloom's that there is only 'misreading: and Fish's insistence that the reader and interpretive community 'create' the text bring to an end any traditional notion of interpretation. These radical claims have not, of course, gone unchallenged and M.H. Abrams, Gerald Graff, Wayne Booth, and E.D. Hirsch have all continually attempted to stem the tide and reassert the validity of the traditional humanistic notion of literary studies and of literary interpretation. Abrams, Graff, Booth, and Hirsch have all defended some notion of objective interpretation and Hirsch has been particularly vigilant in combatting the dangers of subjectiveness and relativism and the claims of the 'cognitive atheists'; against the various ideas of 'misreading', Hirsch has argued his case for objective interpretation, grounded in the author's intention. One of the many difficulties with Hirsch's position, however, is that he has insisted only that an author's intention should guide and control our interpretation - he offers us a moral imperative but cannot show that it logically need control our interpretation. P.O. juhl in Interpretation:An Essay in the Philosophy ofLiterary Criticism attempts to take the theory of interpretation - and Hirsch's position - this one step further. Juhl's study is a book with a thesis - or rather three theses, or claims to be defended. His main concern is to show that 'there is a logical connection between statements about the meaning of the literary work and statements about the author's intention such that astatement about the meaning ofaworkisa statement about the author's intention'; secondly, that 'if a literary work conveys or expresses certain propositions, then ... the real author is committed to the truth of these propositions and to the corresponding beliefs'; finally, what on the UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY, VOLUME 51, NUMBER 1, FALL 19B1 0042-Q247181IIOOO-0102-0112$oo.oo/o to UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS 'WE INTERPRETERS' 103 surface appears to be his most provocative claim, that 'a literary work has one and only one correct interpretation.' AU of these positions go directly in the face of much contemporary thinking on these matters, and, in their extremity, go even further than the views of Hirsch. Unfortunately - or fortunately, depending where one stands - Juhl is not very successful in establishing the validity of his claims. The largest part ofjuhl's book is devoted to his argument about intention, and, like Hirsch, he argues against the famous 'intentionalist fallacy' thesis of Wimsatt and Beardsley. It seems late in the day to be carrying on an argumentwith Wimsatt and Beardsley, yet the impactoftheir argument has been amazinglypervasive and long-lasting. Just a few years ago David de Molina, in a book called simply On Literary Intention (1976), collected recent articles that continued the debate. Ouhl constantly addresses himself, not just to Wimsatt and Beardsley, but to the arguments in this book.) Philosophers, perhaps more than literary critics, keep returning to this issue (Stanley Cavell, for instance, in 'A Matter of Meaning It') and certainly philosophers have given us some of the most sophisticated arguments about intention. Literary critics, at least at the level ofdiscussion, often take a far too simple view of the whole matter of intentionality. It is conscious intention that is usually argued about, and it seems generally to be felt that the whole matter of intentionality can be dispensed...

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