Becoming a Writer: Schleiermacher's Hermeneutics (PART II of II)

Image via Wikipedia 4. Good interpretation can only be approximated. We are, considering all advances in hermeneutical theory, still far from making it a perfect art, as the perennial fights over the writings of Homer and over the comparative merits of the three tragic writers+ show. No individual inspection of a work ever exhausts its meaning; interpre­tation can always be rectified. Even the best is only an approximation of the meaning. Because interpretation so seldom succeeds, and because even the superior critic is open to criticism, we can see that we are still far from the goal of making hermeneutics a perfect art. [A philologist’s approach] 5. Before beginning the technical exposition, we must know the manner in which the subject occurred to the originator, and how he acquired his language and anything else one can learn about his mannerisms. First, one must consider the prior development of the genre of the work at the time when it was written; second, one must consider the use made of the genre typically in the place where the writer worked and in adjacent areas; finally, no exact understanding of the development and usage is pos­sible without a knowledge of the related contemporary literature and especially the works the author might have used as a model. Such a cohesive study is indispensable. The third goal raises very troublesome problems. We could say that the interpretive process as a whole is only as easy as this step is to take. But because even this step requires a judgment which can also be anticipated in the previous steps, it is possible that one might be able to omit it. Biographies of the author were originally annexed to their works for this purpose; now­adays this connection is overlooked. The best sort of prolegomena attends to the first two points. [Context matters: divinatory and comparative methods] With these contextualizations [Vorkenntnissen] in hand one can gain an excellent perception of the essential characteristic of a work upon a first reading. The whole task requires the use of two methods, the divinatory and the comparative, which, however, as they constantly refer back to each other, must not be separated. Using the divinatory, one seeks to understand the writer intimately [unmittelbar] to the point that one transforms oneself into the other. Using the comparative, one seeks to understand a work as a characteristic type, viewing the work, in other words, in light of others like it. The one is the feminine force in the knowledge of human nature; the other is the masculine. Both refer back to each other. The first depends on the fact that every person has a susceptibility to intuiting others, in addition to his sharing many human characteristics. This itself appears to depend on the fact that every­one shares certain universal traits; divination consequently is inspired as the reader compares himself with the author. But how does the comparative come to subsume the subject under a general type? Obviously, either by comparing, which could go on infinitely, or by divination. Neither may be separated from the other, because divination receives its security first from an affirmative comparison, without which it might become outlandish. But the comparative of itself cannot yield a unity. The general and specific must permeate each other, and this can only happen by means of divination. 7. The idea of the work, by which the author's fundamental purpose [Wille] reveals itself, can only be understood in terms of the convergence of the basic material and its peculiarity of his developments. The basic material by itself stipulates no set manner of execution. As a rule it is easy enough to determine, even if it is not exactly specified; but for all that, one can be mistaken. One finds the purpose of the work most pre­cisely in its peculiar or characteristic development of its material. Often the characteristic motif has only a limited influence on certain sections of a work, but nonetheless shapes the character of the work by its influence on others. [Intuition] The interpretive knack is to somehow intuit the meaning while being cautiously aware of how the intuition in some ways predetermines the pro­cess of validating it. To become a writer I write essays every day. Since English is my second language, in writing essays I consult Mary Duffy's Sentence Openers. When I write fiction --or fiction writing of novels and short stories-- I consult Toolbox for Writers.

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