"Against Interpretation"
Against Interpretation is an essay by Susan Sontag that criticizes the prevailing emphasis on interpreting and analyzing works of art, arguing for a focus on experiencing and appreciating art for its own sake.
static1.squarespace.com
In a culture whose already classical dilemma is the hypertrophy of the intellect at the expense of energy and sensual capability, interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art.
Interpretation, based on the highly dubious theory that a work of art is composed of items of content, violates art. It makes art into an article for use, for arrangement into a mental scheme of categories.
I went into Susan Sontag’s “Against Interpretation” thinking we would disagree, but her take is more nuanced. She’s against interpreting an artist’s intentions to make it fit your own narrative; but she’s for analysis of the thing itself (it’s form and the sensation it evokes). By the end, she pleas for a “dictionary of forms,” which feels like the
... See moreMichael Dean added
Interpretation thus presupposes a discrepancy between the clear meaning of the text and the demands of (later) readers. It seeks to resolve that discrepancy.
What the overemphasis on the idea of content entails is the perennial, never consummated project of interpretation. And, conversely, it is the habit of approaching works of art in order to interpret them that sustains the fancy that there really is such a thing as the content of a work of art.
In place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art.
