Instructions

Read the following passage and answer the THREE questions that follow.

Interpretation in our own time, however, is even more complex. For the contemporary zeal for the project of interpretation is often prompted not by piety toward the troublesome text (which may conceal an aggression), but by an open aggressiveness, an overt contempt for appearances. The old style of interpretation was insistent, but respectful; it erected another meaning on top of the literal one. The modern style of interpretation excavates, and as it excavates, destroys; it digs “behind” the text, to find a sub-text which is the true one. The most celebrated and influential modern doctrines, those of Marx and Freud, actually amount to elaborate systems of hermeneutics, aggressive and impious theories of interpretation. All observable phenomena are bracketed, in Freud’s phrase, as manifest content. This manifest content must be probed and pushed aside to find the true meaning—the latent content beneath. For Marx, social events like revolutions and wars; for Freud, the events of individual lives (like neurotic symptoms and slips of the tongue) as well as texts (like a dream or a work of art)—all are treated as occasions for interpretation. According to Marx and Freud, these events only seem to be intelligible. Actually, they have no meaning without interpretation. To understand is to interpret. And to interpret is to restate the phenomenon, in effect to find an equivalent for it.

Thus, interpretation is not (as most people assume) an absolute value, a gesture of mind situated in some timeless realm of capabilities. Interpretation must itself be evaluated, within a historical view of human consciousness. In some cultural contexts, interpretation is a liberating act. It is a means of revising, of transvaluing, of escaping the dead past. In other cultural contexts, it is reactionary, impertinent, cowardly and stifling.

Question 14

According to the passage, which of the following is NOT an act of interpretation?

Solution

Option C is the correct answer because labeling a text as blasphemous is not an act of interpretation in the context discussed in the passage. The passage emphasizes a dynamic and context-dependent approach to interpretation, involving the exploration and excavation of meanings within texts. Labelling a text as blasphemous is more of a judgment or categorization based on personal or cultural beliefs, and it does not align with the nuanced and exploratory nature of interpretation as described in the passage. Interpretation, as presented in the passage, involves a deeper engagement with the content, seeking underlying themes, causes, or appreciating the complexity of literary texts rather than simply assigning a label.


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