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Textual Meaning in the Complex System of Literature
- Philosophy and Literature
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 44, Number 1, April 2020
- pp. 105-123
- 10.1353/phl.2020.0007
- Article
- Additional Information
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Abstract:
How to interpret literary texts has long been a tough issue in literary criticism. This essay considers three salient hermeneutic models, which are text-as-object theory, authorial intent theory, and reader-response theory, arguing that the three are similarly constrained by their common commitment to pursuing a single source in literary interpretation. Insofar as literature is a complex cultural system, it is necessary, when theorizing the mechanism of meaning making, to shift from "single cause" theories to a new framework premised on a complex system thinking, incorporating "multiple causes" in line with the negotiability and complexity of literary hermeneutics.