The Reader as the Determiner of the Meaning

Some interpreters claim that the meaning of a text is determined by the reader. (In literary analysis this reader is sometimes called the “implied reader,” the “competent reader,” the “intended reader,” the “ideal reader,” the “real reader,” etc.) The person who reads the text is seen as giving it its meaning and “actualizing” it. This should not be confused with thinking that the reader learns/deciphers/discovers/ascertains the meaning the text possesses in and of itself (the view described above). Nor should it be confused with the view that the meaning is determined by what the author meant when he or she wrote the text (the view described below). On the contrary, this view maintains that all written texts are essentially dead, or at least in hibernation. It is only through the reader that a text is actualized and comes to life as he or she breathes meaning into it. Each individual that reads the text creates the meaning. Reading a text does not involve the decoding of the original author’s creative intention but rather a rewriting of the text, in which the reader now becomes the author and possesses authority over the text. Consequently, the meaning given to the text is a manifestation of the interpreter’s own beliefs and desires. It is interesting to note that this view became very popular during the Vietnam War years, when there was a widespread revolt against authority in general. This new approach permitted the rejection of any authority over the reader in the area of interpretation. Readers did not have to submit to the authority of the text or its author as the determiner of meaning but rather claimed personal authority over both. Associated with this was a new worldview. Whereas the Ptolemaic, earth-centered understanding of the universe had been replaced by Copernicus’s heliocentric understanding, now Copernicus’s heliocentric understanding was replaced by an egocentric one. Now the individual saw himself or herself as the center of the universe and the determiner of its meaning. Thus it was not the Creator/Author of the universe who determined its meaning but the observer/reader.

According to this view (sometimes called “reception theory,” “reception aesthetics,” “reader-response or reader-centered criticism,” “affective criticism,” etc.), if different readers arrive at different meanings, this is because different readers respond to a text in different ways. Often these reader-centered meanings reflect to a great extent the readers’ own values, likes, and dislikes. Readers in fact are encouraged to interpret texts in such a manner, for in so doing, more vibrant and relevant meanings are given to the text. Thus, for example, we come across Marxist, liberationist, postcolonial, feminist, egalitarian, complimentarian, green or ecological, homosexual, social-scientific, Calvinist, and Arminian “readings” or interpretations of a text. This does not necessarily mean that the reader has actually found in the particular text something that favors a Marxist, liberationist, feminist, or complimentarian interpretation. Rather, it means that the reader has chosen to read the words of the text in a particular way, apart from or even contrary to what the author may have meant. This view assumes that there are many legitimate meanings of a text, for each interpreter contributes his or her meaning to the text and in so doing actualizes it. The text functions somewhat like an inkblot onto which the reader projects his or her own meaning. Sometimes, in popular usage, we hear people say something like “What this biblical text means to me is …” or “This passage may mean something different to you but for me it means …” As we shall see later, in some instances such statements may describe different implications that readers see flowing out of the author’s intended meaning. For those who hold to a reader-centered hermeneutic, however, this usually describes the meaning they choose to give to the text quite apart from and possibly even contradicting what the original author may have intended.

Reader-centered interpretation has contributed a number of insights into the study of texts. For one, it has emphasized the reader’s contribution to the interpretive process. It has pointed out powerfully that readers do not approach texts with a mental tabula rasa. On the contrary, each reader brings to the reading of a text a preunderstanding consisting of their own interests and biases. This may bring distortion, a misreading of the text, and even a reading against the text, but it often brings passion and excitement to the investigation as well. In contrast to some author- and text-centered approaches, in which the reader appears to be a disinterested bystander, reader-centered interpretations are often practiced by people who have causes.

For many moderate reader-centered interpreters the presence of different and contradictory readings of a text is a serious concern. Unwilling to accept interpretative anarchy, they have sought certain restraints for the interpretation of texts. Thus they have raised the questions of how one can determine what kind of a reading is “richer,” more “valuable” or “plausible.” Perhaps the best known criterion is that of Stanley Fish, who appeals to the limitations that exist over readers by their “constraining community.” Through the consensus of this community, various reader-oriented interpretations can be judged to be more valuable than others. Wolfgang Iser has suggested that the implied reader assumed by the text enables the present reader to arrive at the more plausible reading. In general, however, reader-centered interpretations oppose the pursuit of a single determinative meaning for a text and warn against any slavery to the text.

The Author Determines the Meaning

To deny that the author determines the text’s meaning also raises an ethical question. Such an approach appears to rob the author of his or her creation. To treat a text in complete isolation from its author’s intended purpose is like stealing a patent from its inventor or a child from the parent who gave it birth. If we list a work under the name of its author, we are at least tacitly admitting that it belongs to its author. He or she owns this work. To take it and impose upon it our own meaning is a kind of plagiarism. There is a sense in which we have stolen what belongs to someone else. A text is like a will the author leaves for his or her heirs. For an executor to ignore what the author intended by his or her will is criminal and violates everyone’s sense of fairness. For an interpreter to do the same with an author’s literary work likewise seems unethical and disrespectful of the willed legacy of the author. – Robert H. Stein, A Basic Guide to Interpreting the Bible: Playing by the Rules, Second Edition. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011), 9–11, 15.