Clark, History, Theory, Text

Of all the literary critics mentioned in this piece I think that for the field of religious studies, Ricouer offers one of the most relevant way to critique texts. He is glossed over quite quickly in this survey, which is a pity, because he offers a way to read post-structurally without becoming too frustrated by some more post-structural critics like Barthes, who demand an “infinite deferral of meaning” when reading. I also find a description of Ricoeur resonates with my own feelings on the relationship between author-text.
Ricouer, along with many other theorists believed that it was impossible to try to recall the past, one can never hope to understand the conditions of existence in the author’s lifetime, or the lifetime of the text’s original readers; the best one can do is understand how that text can speak to you. The text bridges the existential gap when readers appropriate the texts and make them speak to their own existence through the hermeneutical act. The reader then creates new textual meaning in the act of appropriating the text to their own time and life-experience.
However, the frustrating part for any scholar is that this approach seems to validate every reading, no matter how absurd it is. However, Ricoeur allows for the restriction of meaning within a text: firstly, by the structure of the text itself, structures like events, or chronology which govern the possible interpretations to a certain extent. Secondly, the meanings are restricted by the life experiences, opinions and pre-suppositions of the readers themselves and finally restriction by a community of readers. This last one is a little problematic because in “What is a Text” Ricoeur just sort of tacks it on without much explanation. Despite the plurality of meanings, the individual reading is subject to a “majority” reading, which seems to go against the “constant capacity for renewal” that is inherent in the text.
Ricoeur is a religious thinker, and his literary theory reflects this. For Ricoeur, the ultimate purpose/function of text is the discovery of existential truth through self-critical acts as arrived at from an interpretation of text. Therefore, with every act of interpretation, the understanding that results because of it is a result of the reader’s life experience and presuppositions to the discourse of the text. Since our acts of interpretation are subjective, any meaning we find in a text must be reflected back onto us, as an expression of how we uniquely view the world and our being in it.

Ricouer’s thoughts on the truth about ourselves that reading offers resonates with me. Throughout this class we’ve been talking about bracketing our biases, and the need for us to thoroughly examine the context from which we read and write. Ricoeur’s hermeneutics are almost a celebration of our presuppositions’ effect upon the text, because they lead to a better self-understanding. Yet I don’t think that the entire goal of reading is to discover existential truth about ourselves, as Ricoeur’s program would have it; though understanding the text by what we bring to it is a valuable exercise in self-criticism. Secondly, I think it is important to have some restrictions on textual meaning: wikipedia functions because there is a panel of regulators, and in the same way, I think there need to be some checks within scholarship. Ricoeur walks a fine line, by encouraging this constant fluidity between the text and reader while at the same acknowledging that there is an end to this process. (Barthes would disagree, so would Derrida, for to them, this is closing the text and therefore rendering it irrelevant.) While I really appreciate Derrida, I find it hard to put into practice what he calls for, namely, this constant uncertainty, and this constant possibility. Therefore for me, Ricoeur’s thought presents a way to interact with texts in a post-structuralist, semi-post-modern way, yet with the comfort of being able to settle on a particular interpretation.

In regards to the question about context, I do think there is a place for context in literary theory although I disagree with using context as a way of digging into the text in the search for one, monolithic meaning or truth. However, context, in a variety of forms, both the historical context (although we must be careful to explain how we chose the particular historical context that we think is authoritative) and the other texts with which this particular text participates can inform the reader as they construct their own text in the process of reading. Context is not the beyond-all, end-all, but it can leave traces which the reader then appropriates in their own discourse.