Interpretation: Facts First

It may not be all in the facts, but it needs to begin with the facts.

This is a general principle I want my students to follow when interpreting texts (that is, novels, plays, poems, films, etc.). If I assign them a story to read and then ask them what it signifies--what it's really about--they must know the facts of the story in order to do this. I was recently reminded by a colleague that interpretation--that nearly favorite passtime of English teachers--begins with the facts. It's a simple, obvious truth, yet one that we often forget.

I have had some remarkably random interpretations of stories and poems cast my way over the years, and I can safely say that the primary culprit is a misunderstanding of the facts. (Of course, there is that other bug-a-boo of students probing for that "hidden, deeper meaning"... the one that may or may not be where they're trying to dig.) To do interpretation we must at least know the face-value of the very basic facts of what we're interpreting. Even with an understanding of the facts, it's still possible to misinterpret, but at least we can work our way back to them and then start anew when conflicting or skewed interpretations occur. 

Interestingly enough, this same principle holds true in real life as well. When we are working through problems, talking with people, interacting in and through our relationships, watching television, surfing the net, scanning Facebook posts--you name it--we need to be sure we have our facts straight, lest we fly off into non sequitur land when we begin interpreting all the words, images, sounds, smells, etc., that make up the very atmosphere of our day to day existence. On countless occassions my kids have been angered, frustrated, sad--or the opposite extremes--delighted, encouraged, happy, because of their failing to base their interpretation of things on the facts. (How many times have I as an adult done the same thing?)

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So here's my thought for you today: when doing interpretation--in class or in life--be sure you know the facts first. Oh sure, we can get all philosophical about lenses of interpretation, worldviews, religious views, etc., but we still have to interpret this world in terms of the facts. Otherwise, we don't really stand a chance at making interpretations... much less, understanding each other.  

Still learning "real life" in the stories

I'm an English teacher. To be more exact, I teach literature. At least, the names of the courses I teach imply that this is what I do.

However, over the past few years I've found myself primarily interested in my students seeing more clearly, more fully, more deeply, more insightfully. In many ways, texts have become simply my means to this end. I spend much more time discussing characters and situations and cause and effect than I do the various literary techniques and devices I used to think of when I thought of literature. I tend to lead students into the texts presupposing an awareness of the literary devices, the elements and parts of stories.

No, I'm more interested in students seeing literary texts as a means to or a mode of knowledge. To borrow an image from Leland Ryken, I'm more interested in my students seeing texts as the windows on the world, windows to the world. Somehow through these texts we're able to plumb the depths of human experience in ways that elude us in many other academic ventures; we're able to see and experience and understand life in ways that are often beyond our perception in day to day living.

Sure, I've mentioned some of these things before, but I'm rethinking them again tonight as I read through student essays about Oedipus Rex. The essays were meant to be short discussion question responses--twelve to fifteen lines or so. Several of the students went above and beyond my expectations. More than that, they are seeing what's going on in the text and--at least a few--are able to see the connections between Oedipus's story and the stories we live in "real life." No, most of us--thankfully--don't murder our fathers and marry our mothers, but we do struggle to understand our identities and our place in this world. We do come face to face with the horrors of some of our actions and the consequences we must live with thereafter.    

As I've been reading these essays, I remember that I'm a student, too. I remember that I'm still learning the very thing that I try to teach. I'm still learning to see. And though Keanu Reeves says otherwise in the movie Point Break, vision is NOT highly overrated. I need more of it.

Literature is a mode of knowing

There are many ways of knowing--of coming into knowing or knowledge--and reading literature is one of them. Many of us often neglect this sort of knowledge or the pursuit of it, because it's less facts-based, apparently less useful for the here and now, less pragmatic. Rather--or so the common line of thinking goes--literature is just stories or poems and not much good for day to day living.

I say otherwise. If anything, literature is exactly about day to day living. Students often ask, "When are we going to use this in real life?" With literature, the answer is simply, "This is real life." At least, literature deals with the particulars of life, giving them form for us to grasp and understand and, well, something from which to gain knowledge.

Emotion, Imagination, and Experience

Knowledge is communicated through literature differently than it is through other sorts of writing. The primary difference is that story and poetry show human experience, while the other types primarily tell about it. We don’t generally read a story to get information, as we would a newspaper article. Rather, a story or poem is a sort of portal or window on or into the world (an idea I got from Leland Ryken of Weaton College). We look through this window, and yes, we see a world depicted which may be a world of elves and dwarves, heroes and villains, princesses and knights, or common men and women with common lives in a world just like our own. But more than that, we also see our own world in a new light as a result. In many ways, literature helps us to better contemplate and understand our own reality and experience, even if the stories are far-fetched fantasy adventures of orcs and talking trees. Literature does so by showing us life.

Also, stories and poems usually deal with what is concrete. It takes human experience and doesn’t simply define or explore the philosophical nature of such things as love, conflict, suffering, family, etc. Literature puts ideas and emotions, which are abstract, into a determinate shape in the imagination. It shows us these things—and more—played out through the lives and experiences of characters or poetic speakers. An author will have characters going through actions, living life in a setting of some kind. He will use sensory details—words and descriptions that appeal to the five senses—to bring the characters, the action, the setting to life. And this “bringing to life” occurs in our imagination as we read or hear a story. With such in our imagination, we can somehow “hold” onto it, understand it, almost “touch” it, as if it had more substance than an idea or emotion.

To be sure, as we read stories we are moved in our intellect, just as we are when we read other types of written language for facts. But in addition to our intellect, our imagination and our emotions are also moved. In this way, a story or poem expresses the whole of reality, the whole of life. A story may not express exactly what we personally think about reality and life, but it certainly does express a sense of life. We experience a sense of the way things truly are.

Again, like most (maybe all) types of writing, literature communicates to our intellect, but more than that, it communicates to our emotions, our imaginations, and our experience. This is how literature is a mode of knowledge, and such knowledge is what we desperately as human beings trying to live in community in our schools, churches, towns, cities, states, countries.