7
Interpretation: Defending
“Overinterpretation”
Since 1975 I have from time to time argued that one o f the major
problems o f hterary studies is the assumption, all too infrequently chal
lenged, that the goal o f literary studies is the interpretation o f literary works
and that the test o f any theoretical discourse is whether it makes possible
new and convincing interpretations o f individual works. ^ This presump
tion produces a rather odd situation: although we have vast numbers o f in
terpretations o f every major work and o f very many minor ones, we lack
adequate accounts o f how literature itself works: what are the norms and
conventions that enable literary works to have the meanings they do for
members o f a culture? As Northrop Frye pointed out long ago in The Anat
omy o f Criticism, we lack the understanding and agreement that would en
able us to write the opening pages of a textbook about literature, explain
ing what the basic divisions, types, or categories o f literature are. While we
have histories o f some genres, we lack convincing theories o f the impor
tance or roles o f genres or o f what genres there are or o f the constitutive
conventions o f each. But instead o f working on such problems, critics see
their task as producing new interpretations o f the works that interest them
and, naturally, in the quest to avoid tedious, unsurprising interpretations,
often produce interpretations that seem outlandish, excessive.
I.
See Jonathan Culler, Structuralist Poetics (Ithaca, NY; Cornell University
Press, 1975), viii, 114-30; and Jonathan Culler, “Beyond Interpretation,” in The
Pursuit o f Signs (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981), 3-17.
Interpretation: Defending “Overinterpretation”
1 67
I am scarcely a partisan o f interpretation, then (although I have cer
tainly done my share o f it), but when I was invited to act as a respondent
to Umberto Eco, who was to deliver three lectures on the topic “Interpre
tation and Overinterpretation,” I somehow sensed what my role was sup
posed to be: to defend overinterpretation.^ Since I had often heard Um
berto Eco lecture, and well knew the wit and exuberant narrative skill he
could bring to the mockery o f whatever he chose to call “overinterpreta
tion,” I could see that defending overinterpretation might well prove un
comfortable, but in fact I found myself happy to accept my allotted role,
to defend overinterpretation on principle.
Interpretation itself needs no defense; it is with us always, but like
most intellectual activities, interpretation is interesting only when it is ex
treme. Moderate interpretation, which articulates a consensus, though it
may have value in some circumstances, especially pedagogical ones, is of
little interest. A good statement o f this view comes from G. K. Chester
ton, who observes, “Either criticism is no good at all (a very defensible po
sition) or else criticism means saying about an author the very things that
would have made him jump out o f his b o o t s . T h e production o f inter
pretations o f literary works should not be thought o f as the supreme goal,
much less the only goal o f literary studies, but if critics are going to spend
their time working out and proposing interpretations, then they should
apply as much interpretive pressure as they can, should carry their think
ing as far as it can go. Many “extreme” interpretations, like many moderate
interpretations, will no doubt have little impact, because they are judged
unpersuasive or redundant or irrelevant or boring, but if they are extreme,
they have a better chance, it seems to me, o f bringing to light connections
or implications not previously noticed or reflected on than if they strive to
remain “sound” or moderate.
Let me add that, whatever Umberto Eco may say, what he in fact
does in the three lectures o f Interpretation and Overinterpretation, as well
2. The Tanner Lectures at Robinson College, Cambridge, published as
Umberto Eco, Interpretation and Overinterpretation, with Richard Rorty, Jonathan
Culler, and Christine Brooke-Rose, ed. Stefan Collini (Cambridge, UK: Cam
bridge University Press, 1992); hereafter abbreviated Ю and cited parenthetically
in the text.
3. G. K. Chesterton, Appreciations and Criticisms o f the Works o f Charles
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