interplay between creation and interpretation

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The Interplay between Creation and InterpretationAuthor(s): Wolfgang IserSource: New Literary History, Vol. 15, No. 2, Interrelation of Interpretation and Creation(Winter, 1984), pp. 387-395Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/468862

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Discussion

The Interplay between Creation

and Interpretation

WolfgangIser

AT ACKLING the interrelationship between creation and interpre-tation turned out to be such a formidable task that it appears

inappropriate to criticize the ideas advanced in these articles.

There is a general trend to be observed in the current critical dis-

cussion-at least in the humanities-toward concentrating on

showing up the shortcomings of positions put forward by the oppo-nent, implying one has the answer which he, however, refrains from

divulging. Instead of voicing disagreement with what has been sug-

gested in these articles, I might more profitably trace the underlyingtrends concerning creation and interpretation and find out why it

proves so hard to conceptualize the issue. What actually did these

articles zero in on, and how do we account for the diversity of the

conclusions provided? Are there common features to be discerned

and, if so, what do they indicate?

None of the participants actually advocated a strict separation be-

tween creation and interpretation. The intertwining of these two ac-

tivities was more or less upheld by all of them, even at times to the

degree of eliminating the distinction altogether. Yet whenever this

happened, new distinctions began to emerge, irrespective of an all-

pervading reluctance to pinpoint the resulting difference. Rather,creation was cast as an interpretive endeavor, and interpretation at

times elevated to a creative act. This very interchange of attributes,

however, could become meaningful only if some notion persisted as

to what might distinguish the two concepts from one another. And

yet, natural though this may seem, the very distinction either eluded

or defied conceptualization.Norman Holland was inclined to make the distinction collapse in

favor of what he calls the identity-feedback picture which appears to

govern both interpretation and creation. As the two are so alike, he

maintains we could use the same words for them. Still, he bases his

umbrella concept on findings in Frost, who set up the world in paired



THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN CREATION AND INTERPRETATION

God's word; a hermeneutics of the implicit meaning, focusing on the

interplay between the covert and the overt inscribed in language it-

self; a hermeneutics of the fusion of horizons, telescoping past and

present into each other; and finally a hermeneutics of suspicion, un-

covering the suppressed. If the inaccessible is to be made available,it can never be equated with any one of these interpretive techniques.What they have in common, though, is a duality which both shows

up the problem of interpretation and provides the stimulus for its

resolution. The resolution itself, however, requires in each instance

an informed guess, which at the most is prestructured by the respec-tive framework without being generated by it. What turns this typeof interpretation into an art is the way in which it carves out struc-

tured blanks in the frameworks concerned in order to kindle a guidedintuition. This does not mean, however, that the blanks give a free

play to divination; instead, they provide a conscious control for a leapof the imagination required whenever the unbridgeable has to be

bridged.There are a few inferences to be drawn from the discussion thus

far. Interpretation is basically a cognitive act designed to tackle some-

thing noncognitivein nature. Hence a difference has to be overcome.

If it is erased, new dualities, even duplicities, begin to surface; if it is

upheld, areas of indeterminacy are marked off, the delineation of

which depends on the presuppositions each interpretive framework

has brought to bear. Indeterminacies signify that which escapes the

cognitive act; although shaped by the latter, they indicate somethingunfathomable in terms of cognition. Simultaneously, they function as

a propellant for their removal, and whenever this happens, interpre-tation is transmuted into creation. The vacancy, then, existing within

thecognitive

act is filledby

a concretevision,

which in turn loses all

the credentials cognition is able to provide and can appeal only

through its forcefulness to spontaneous acceptance. In this respect

interpretation is always on the verge of becoming creative, yet the

creation brought about is not ex nihilo but conditioned by cognition,

although paradoxically intended to repair what cognition fails to

achieve. And it is this very "failure" which becomes productive insofar

as it imprints itself on the creation arising out of the limits of cognitivediscourse. This is, then, further evidence for Hilary Putnam's state-

ment: not everything goes, as everything which can be brought aboutis conditioned by something else.

So far we have considered only one-though prominent-type of

the interrelationship between creation and interpretation. Just as in-

terpretation necessarily extends into the creative act, the relationshipmay also work the other way round, as can be seen in Richard Shiffs

389



NEW LITERARY HISTORY

paper. Creation in the pictorial arts cannot be conceived in terms of

pure innovation, as novelty for its own sake does not seem to work.

Originality in any artist will succeed only if it can be represented; thisrequires conventions, the deformation of which results in "cor-

recting" them according to the artist's vision. Correction, however,inscribed into shared conventions or even time-honored traditions,defies conceptualization, as it breaks established bounds and thus

transmits itself as an experience-an event exceeding referentiality.Events of this kind release an impulse that aims at understandingwhat has happened. The ensuing interpretation cannot immediatelybe qualified as a cognitive act; it is first and foremost a reception of

the experience provided by the painting. Only after reception hastaken place does interpretation get under way, a processing of the

very experience. This is then related to frameworks which incorpo-rate it into what is familiar or determine why defamiliarization has

occurred. Whatever the case may be, interpretation turns out to be a

cognitive appropriation of an experience generated by a creative act.

Given these conditions, creation and interpretation are fairly sepa-rated from one another, though interlinked by the attempt to trans-

late art into cognition.

This separation, however, entails one important caveat strictly tobe observed in the interpretive endeavor: never to interpolate the

product of interpretation into the artwork in a manner that tacitlyassumes it is an integral property of that work itself. Interpretationis only a way of coping with experience, the appropriation of which

marks it off from creation. The latter "corrects" the very conventions

to which interpretation as a form of processing an art experienceremains committed.

At this juncture Hilary Putnam's remarks become pertinent. By

outlining interpretation as both "context sensitive" and "interest rel-ative," he implies in effect that the interrelation between creation and

interpretation is basically genre-bound. Genre has to be taken in the

broadest sense of the term: it is related to the different types of

discourse which try to tackle the problem from a literary critic's, phi-

losopher's, or art historian's point of view. Hence the interconnection

between creation and interpretation changes shape in each of the

types of discourse, in consequence of which the interconnection turns

out to be not a preordained given-as our tacit knowledge may lead

us to surmise-but rather something to be constituted in as manydifferent ways as there are intents prevailing in the various dis-courses. This holds equally true for the features attributed to bothcreation and interpretation; for distinguishing markers are depen-dent on the respective presuppositions governing the cognitive im-

pulse of the generically different discourses.

390




If distinctions arrived at so far are molded by genre, this clearlyindicates that there is no transcendental stance allowing us to come

up with an umbrella concept of either creation or interpretation. Still,there is no need to sound a note of despair, for the genre-conditioned

interrelationship highlights a great many possibilities through which

creation and interpretation interlock, and these possibilities would be

severely reduced if any monolithic definition were to prevail.This is indirectly borne out by Umberto Eco's article on metaphor,

which can be conceived as an illustration of how important it is for

the relationship at issue to be kept open-ended. Although Eco did

not address himself to the topic of creation and interpretation, the

process of unlimited semiosis which he describes as the hallmark ofmetaphor might serve to spotlight a peculiar interlinkage between

the two. To view metaphor as a pulling together of dictionary and

encyclopedia entails their mutual encroachment. The resulting con-

densation and displacement of either lexical denotations or cultural

references bring about an interplay between presence and absence.

The encyclopedia eclipses lexical meaning, which, though displaced,remains in view and simultaneously reflects back on the encyclopedia,

uncovering the covert motivation operative in the creation of the

metaphor. This makes metaphor, if not exactly open-ended, at leastopen to inferences to be drawn by its potential recipient who maynow begin to understand his or her own encyclopedia by having been

given a viewpoint outside that in which he or she is otherwise en-

closed. Furthermore, though metaphor is structured by encyclopedia,it also restructures the encyclopedia by opening up hitherto unfor-

seeable modes of similarities and dissimilarities. Thus metaphor, aris-

ing out of a condensation of dictionary and encyclopedia, tends to

reshuffle both of them. It is the encyclopedia which spurs the imag-

ination into action through which the dictionary gets reinterpreted,allowing for new inferences to be made regarding the encyclopedia.

This conception of metaphor epitomizes the interlocking of two

different activities: the disruption of established conventions and the

reintegration of the disrupted, thereby providing a pattern of changefor both the dictionary and the encyclopedia. Although united by

metaphor, the two activities can be distinguished from one another:

disruption is a creative act; patterning a reinterpretation. In this re-

spect, metaphor combines the uncombinable or, to phrase it differ-

ently, this very combination can only be metaphorically represented,

just as each discourse discussed can only figure the interrelation in

terms of genre.Now the question arises whether the whole issue is actually on the

verge of lapsing into relativism. Although it may look like it, it doesnot seem to be the case, as we have only reached the limits of the

391




epistemological argument. Yet we know, as Hilary Putnam puts it,human nature is simply not surveyable, and cognition as a route to

incommensurability appears to lead to a dead end. This impasse alertsus to the fact that creation and interpretation are perhaps not so

much epistemological as anthropological issues, which retroactively

explains why genre turned out to be an adequate framework for

scrutinizing the interrelationship in question. The differences in

genre reflect different human needs, just as metaphor reflects the

paradoxical wish to pattern change itself while simultaneously fa-

voring breaks in continuities. The moment the anthropological issue

moves into focus, creation itself can be

stripped

of the

many

inter-

pretations it was accorded in our culture, not least by the Romantics,who magnified creation as a divine inspiration, the fruits of which

promised an improved and intensified life.

Yet creation is, as can be inferred from Rene Girard's position,

something in the nature of a scandal because it disrupts conventions

and infringes boundaries. How powerful these acts of transgressionare can be gauged from the attempts to attenuate their destructive-

ness by ritualizing them, turning violence into frozen images of scape-

goatingand

victimage.Desire

is, accordingto

Girard,the

drivingforce powering what he considers our mimetic longing. And as there

is no preordained object of desire, human beings are prone to scan-

dalize one another the more they turn into stumbling blocks for each

other, thereby frustrating this innate drive. Thus whatever is in the

nature of an obstacle turns into a scandal and is bound to unleash

incontrollable force. This idea restores to creation its archaic dimen-

sion, revealing its insoluble ambivalence by showing that the act of

generation itself entails destruction.

Now we can ask where we have arrived and what it possibly means.Creation emerged basically as an act of transgression, ranging from

defamiliarization through pattern breaking to scandal, simulta-

neously divesting creation of its various cultural notions as the

crowning activity of man. In its scandalizing violence it exposes ar-

chaic features of the human creator. Interpretation, on the other

hand, proved to be an attempt at translating events brought about

by creation into existing frameworks for both their comprehensionand manageability. Its cognitive operations are designed to control

the incontrollable.Yet as two basic human activities creation and interpretation are

not just opposed to each other but are in constant interplay. Creation

is never pure creation but always dependent on given contexts within

which it occurs and by which it is conditioned. Although creation

exceeds existing limitations and even scandalizes hallowed conven-

392




tions, it nevertheless is unable to free itself totally from what it out-

strips. In this respect creation is a negative interpretation. Interpre-tation, in turn, is never pure cognition. Translating something which

may range from the unfamiliar to the unavailable into given frame-

works requires an imaginative leap at some point. In this respect,

interpretation as a cognitive appropriation of the inaccessible is a

guided creation. Yet guided creation isjust as different from creation

conceived in terms of pattern breaking as negative interpretation is

from the cognitive intent of interpretation. What may, at a superficial

glance, have looked like an interchange of attributes now turns out

to be a new difference inscribed into both creation and interpretation,the very interlocking of which will not lead to a final collapse of the

distinction but rather issue into an unfolding of further differences.

But if, in the final analysis, difference persists, how then do we ac-

count for the interplay of these two activities which basically point in

diametrically opposed directions: creation is transgression and inter-

pretation refamiliarization?

Again, the answer cannot be attempted in terms of epistemology

any longer, as there is no transcendental stance allowing for a con-

ceptualizationof the

split.It has rather to be

approached throughanthropology, as the interplay in question reflects something inherent

in the human situation. For brevity's sake, I put forward two as-

sumptions. The human being, as Arnold Gehlen maintains, is inferior

to the animal, since its instinctual system is defunct, in consequenceof which there is a pressing need to repair this deficiency. Hence we

build institutions designed to substitute for what we have lost in our

biological makeup, thereby enabling us to cope with a world not tai-

lored to our needs.

In this respect, myth can be conceived as one of the first "institu-tions" man has "invented" in order to counterbalance the over-

whelming pressure exercised by pure contingency-a view held byHans Blumenberg, who considers myth a basic effort to humanize an

otherwise unmanageable world. Consequently, myth is not so much

an explanation of origins-as frequently assumed-but a counter-

vailing attempt to lay primeval terror. To make the world habitable

is to overlay it with pictures which are bound to change when our

need for sense-making changes. Myth, therefore, is constantly recast,

as borne out by the history of mythologies as well as by the unendingreappropriation of mythical patterns in historic situations. The veryfact that even myth usually considered to be of an archetypal na-

ture-is subjected to an incessant remolding testifies to its functionof providing stability and comprehension in the face of threats and

overpowering forces. Thus myth appears to be one of the very many

393




"institutions" we have concocted for safeguarding our situation and

for repairing our deficiencies. Yet institutions are, in the final anal-

ysis, nothing but pragmatic solutions to problems we find ourselvesconfronted with, and as we cannot help building institutions, they, in

turn, reflect our pragmatic needs.

Institutions are just one of the products of interpretation by means

of which we situate ourselves in our world. As an attempt at either

shoring up our existence or appropriating that which extends beyondour immediate grasp, interpretation nevertheless turns out to be am-

bivalent in nature. Propelled by the impulse to familiarize the unfa-

miliar, it imposes cognitive frameworks on what appears to be incom-

mensurable, thus naturalizing an otherwise unmanageable experi-ence. The more successful, however, these attempts prove to be, the

more we tend to equate our interpretations with the state of affairs

to be interpreted. Reification then becomes the new danger looming

large in every successful interpretation. We are prone to forget its

basically pragmatic nature; whenever this lapse occurs, we are on the

verge of imprisoning ourselves within our interpretive frameworks.

Thus situations are bound to arise in which a dismantling not onlyof what

interpretationhas

broughtabout but also of what

governsthe respective interpretation becomes necessary if we are to escapefrom our self-imprisonment.

In these instances, a disruptive force of a revolutionary character

is required to open the floodgates of our fantasies, engulfing the

cognitive frameworks through which we have accommodated our

needs. Creation, then, is an annihilation of our cherished securities,and it tends to become scandalous the more entrenched our stabilities

are. For a long time we have entertained the lofty notion that creation

is the hallmark of humanexcellence, indicating

that we are able to

produce a world more beautiful, more gratifying, and more sane than

the one existing prior to creative acts which, in the final analysis,reflect only our desire to emulate the divine creator. Creation maybe much more destructive and yet more liberating than the traditional

idea of man as a demiurge has ever led us to believe. It manifests

itself in various ways, ranging from defamiliarization through pattern

breaking to scandal, depending on the resisting forces to be over-

come. Creation is basically "decomposition," as Beckett worded it,

because we live in an interpreted world which stands in need of con-stant rearrangement in order to prevent it from lapsing into dead-

ening immobility. Yet what is brought about by the decomposing act

of creation can never be anticipated, let alone conceptualized, in

terms of what has been destroyed. Hence we start interpreting it in

order to find out what happened when our self-produced prison walls

394




crumbled. Interpretation, then, becomes an endeavor to reap the

fruits of this liberation; yet, in processing them, we tend to make new

arrangements of our world.

Thus creation and interpretation are neatly geared to each other.

If creation is an unforseeable yet necessary inroad into our organizedworld, interpretation is an ordering impulse accommodating the

breakup in a repatterned world.

Although creation defies cognition, it nevertheless is conditioned

by the context to be decomposed, which links it to the form of inter-

pretation it is meant to disrupt. Interpretation, in turn, though bas-

icallya

cognitive operation,has to

bridgea

gulfbetween

cognitionand the incommensurable, which requires an imaginative leap, cre-

ative in nature. There is a cognitive conditioning operative in the

creative act as well as an imaginary force in interpretation, thougheach of these qualities is differently proportioned according to the

purpose it is meant to fulfill.

Interpretation indicates the dominance of the conscious over the

imaginary, and creation swamps the conscious by the imaginary. As

these two activities interlink, they testify to something in the human

makeup,which in the words of Anton

Ehrenzweigcould be called

the ego-rhythm of structured focusing and oceanic dedifferentiation.

At this juncture, the interplay between creation and interpretationcould be conceived as a vantage point for opening up a perspectiveon the as yet widely unexplored territory of cultural anthropology.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA,

IRVINE

395

interplay between creation and interpretation

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