Interpretation
Jerome McGann’s discussion seems to parallel a relationship between the notions we have been discussing in class regarding research and the process of interpretation. During the course of the past couple of weeks, it has become quite evident that research, in its true sense, is not about the end result of producing a research paper that comes to some kind of profound conclusion on a given topic; instead the research process itself is of primary importance. The act of researching, of reading various sources, considering different points of view, and attempting to understand and place oneself within the larger conversation surrounding that topic should be the goal of scholarship. Similarly, interpretation should be perceived in the same respect. McGann contends that we, as members of an “interpretive community”, must move away from the ideal that there is some kind of true MEANING in a text or document , and, instead, submit to the notion that “scholarship, like science, is committed basically not to truth but to rigor (as to method), thoroughness (as to empirical evidence), and accuracy (in the treatment of its facts and data).” He claims that views of scholarship and interpretation that suggest that they should be “about something” are inadequate. Rather than looking for some overall meaning, or definitive conclusion, it is more effective to view scholarship and interpretation as “procedures that do something about something.”
As part of his discussion on interpretation, McGann offers a distinction between the different types. He focuses, primarily, though on scholarly interpretation; a conversation regarding scholarly interpretation seems of particular relevance to the concerns of a research class, not only because it involves members of a university , whom he views as being an “interpretive community”, but also because of the direct relationship he establishes between research and the notion of interpretation. An interesting component of McGann’s discussion of scholarly interpretation involves the “double helix” that he views as being formed by “the history of a work’s production” and “the history of a works’ reception”; both of which are necessary for serious scholarship. He claims that “the works we examine have all been shaped by that double helix, and so have all our critical reflections on them.”
Essentially, McGann seeks to establish the inadequacy of current, as well as past, interpretive models. He does so, not to suggest that interpretation is an irrelevant waste of time, but to broaden the notion of interpretation to something more than extracting meaning from a text or document. He concludes his essay by stating that “To deliberately accept the inevitable failure of interpretive adequacy is to work toward discovering new interpretive virtues.”
