Circumspect Speculation

“The Great Interpretive Debate: Barthes vs. Nabokov”

April 1, 2010 at 12:00 pm (Pedagogical Theory) (Author, Hermeneutic Debate, Reader, Roland Barthes, The Death of the Author, Vladimir Nabokov)

hermeneutics — n. the term hermeneutics covers both the first order art and the second order theory of understanding and interpretation of linguistic and non-linguistic expressions (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Roland Barthes: “Watchu lookin’ at?” 

vs.

Vladmir Nabokov: “I’m lookin at yer ugly mug.”

The hermeneutic debate, otherwise known as known the great interpretive debate, examines the tension between readership rights and authorial rights in regards to the interpretation text. On one end of the spectrum is Roland Barthes’ revolutionary invocation of reader’s rights. On the other end is Vladmir Nabokov’s traditionalist belief of authorial rights.

In “The Death of the Author” Barthes is firm proponent of readership privilege. His philosophies align with that of the great French poet Mallarmé: For him, it is language which speaks, not the author; to write is, through a prerequisite impersonality…, to reach that point where only language acts, ‘performs,’ and not ‘me.’” In order to validate the privilege of the reader, Mallarmé’s poetry focuses on suppressing the author. In a similar vein, Barthes asserts:

The removal of the Author…utterly transforms the modern text….[T]he text is henceforth made and read in such a way that at all its levels the author is absent….To give a text an Author is to impose a limit on that text, to furnish it with a final signified, to close the writing. Classic criticism has never paid any attention to the reader; for it, the writer is the only person in literature. We are now beginning to let ourselves be fooled no longer by the arrogant antiphrastical recriminations of good society in favor of the very thing it sets aside, ignores, smothers, or destroys. (255-257)

Barthes’ asserts that when we read, we must discount the looming expectations of the Author. “The birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author” (257). As readers, we have the right to formulate our own conceptions and meanings, regardless of authorial “intention.”

On the other side of the hermeneutic debate is Nabokov’s assertion of authorial rights. He once stated, “Curiously enough, one cannot read a book: one can only reread it. A good reader, a major reader, and active and creative reader is a rereader.” His assumption that the text we read has already been read implies that the first “reader” is the author of the text. If we never encounter a text for the first time, it is because the author has encountered it first. For the Nabokovian author, writing is an intentional act, and reading, he implies, is aimed at rereading the author’s intention.

“The Great Interpretive Debate” (http://slayerjr.deviantart.com/art/Smokers-boxing-match-50577507)

Guy on Left: Fool, Nabokov’s right. / Guy on Right: Noooooooo!

These diametrically opposed views raise the question of the pedagogy that should be used in an English classroom. As educators, are we to trust in a student’s Barthesian reading of text, or are we to advocate the authorial intention of a work by adhering to a Nabokovian reading? While I find both views equally enlightening, I find Barthes’ hermeneutic philosophy more acceptable. When the question of authorial intent looms over a text, we restrict our ability to freely interpret what we read.

The author and the reader must find compromise…

In an attempt to play devil’s advocate, however, I can also say that there may be room for both the Barthesian and Nabokovian philosophies about reading and interpreting a text. The modern reader must take what he can and interpret to the best of his ability by exercising his rights as a reader, but he must also return to the text and assume the position as a “rereader” of a text, keeping the authorial intent of the reader in mind.