What is the relations between text and the reader?

Rick Politician
Christian Stuart
English 131
June 8, 2005
SA1.4
I recently read an essay called “How to Recognize a Poem When You See One,” by Stanley Fish, a professor and Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at University of Illinois at Chicago, which discusses the relationship between a text and the interpretation of that text by readers.  Trust me; it is more interesting that it sounds. Read on.  He suggests that a text does not inherently have a particular meaning, but it is rather an interpreter’s already in-place assumptions about the text that determine the meaning (Fish 307).  For example, as we know from all those English classes we took in high school, the word love has many meanings.  In Ancient Greece the practice of paedophilia, most often the love between a man and a boy, was considered the highest level of love that could exist between two humans (Plato 178c). This practice involved the older Greek man closely mentoring the boy, and also using the boy for physical sexual pleasure.  Pretty unfortunate, huh?  If you or I read an Ancient Greek text, the already in-place assumptions about the genre may cause us to interpret the word “love” between an older man and a young boy as paedophilia.  In contrast to this, let us look at C.S. Lewis who wrote a number of books that are known to be based on Christian based values.  When reading a C.S. Lewis book, you or I might expect the “love” described between an older man and a boy to be father/son love.  Depending on category of literary work “love” exists within, the word can take on a new significance. 
A critic of Fish may offer the following contrary point of view on how readers derive meaning from a text:  The meaning one attaches to “love” within a literary text depends upon the how the author characterizes the “love” through the use of adjectives, situational context, or background on the characters.  In an Ancient Greek text, for example, the author may describe the older man as having many previous such relationships with young boys that last no more than three to six months.  The critic of Fish could argue that the author is the one creating the impression that romantic relations may exist between the older man and the young boy.   In contrast, Fish could argue that you and I recognize many short relationships with different boys are more indicative of paedophilia than a father/son relationship because of our already in-place assumptions about the nature of relationships.  More specifically, romantic relationships are often much shorter in duration than father/son relationships, so the three to six month relationship likely indicates a romantic relationship between the older man and young boy.
Fish also argues that “interpretive strategies” used to analyze texts “are not our own, but have their source in a publicly available system of intelligibility” (311).  Applying this to our example of “love”, Fish might say you are part of an interpretive community that identifies the various meanings “love” in separate texts differently due to your culturally imbued knowledge.  Fish believes people “are products of social and cultural patterns of thought” (311).  You think the way you do because that is what you learned growing up in Memphis within our school system.  Therefore, I think that way too.   Interpretative communities confer meaning to a text based on common, in-place assumptions they have regarding the text.  The text itself has an infinite number of potential meanings, but no one-particular meaning without an interpretive community.
            Fish presents one more main point in his essay.  He comments on the dichotomy critics believe exists between the implied meaning of a text by the author and the understood meaning by the readers.  Fish believes “there can be no adversary relationship between text and self because they are the necessarily related products of the same cognitive possibilities” (314).  In other words, if the author, their text and the readers are all part of the same interpretive community, then they will all have a common, shared understanding of the text.  Taking the concept one step further, the meaning of a text exists not as static entity, but as a continually changing and shaped by all of its past and present interpreters (314).  Cool, huh?

Meta Analysis
The first change I made was to personalize the essay towards John.  My best friend, John, would appreciate the informal, “from me to you” tone.  People tend to read a work with more intensity and care when they know the text has been written specifically for them.  Also, I have already earned John’s respect for me as an educated man.  He welcomingly receives and considers opinions voiced by me.  By explicitly showing John that the essay comes from me through the use of an informal writing style, John would be more receptive to messages in the writing.  I also replaced examples of the more professional or slightly esoteric diction.  Instead, I used words that John and I would be more likely to utilize if we were having a conversation.
I definitely felt I was in charge of the changes I made.  The changes were based on judgments I was making about what would work best.  That is, the changes were based on my own subjectivity, rather than a strict external guideline that I needed to follow.
            John and I went to high school together and lived in the same town.  We grew up in the same interpretive community.  Thus, the way I interpret my writing, would be, to a large degree, the way John interprets my writing.  I think Fish would probably agree with me here.  Based on Fish’s ideas, John and I came from the same interpretive community and, therefore, have similar already in-place assumptions.  Fish might see my adaptations in language, style and tone as tailored to John’s interpretive assumptions.  Fish may also say the first essay was targeted                                               to a broader audience through the use of an academic writing style that acted as a common ground, or medium, through which the entire audience could understand my message.  In summary, by using informal rhetoric and literary examples familiar to John, I increased the essay’s potential to engage John, while at the same time alienating any other prospective readers.