Between the text and the reader : interpretation in the readings of modern Maltese poetry

Abstract

This thesis presents a method of literary appreciation that seeks the significance of the literary work, rather than its correct or repeatable meaning. The significance of the work emerges from a dialogue between the reader, who brings forth a repertoire of literary and cultural conventions, and the text, whose verbal signs allow for further interpretation. In this reader-text dialogue, what matters most is the last performance added to the memory of the text, or the conventions that it evokes. This performance brings the foreknowledge of the reader into an enhanced realization, yet must always belong to a tradition of literary paradigms, techniques, structures, and symbols in order to be recognized as a meaningful advance in meaning. Throughout the thesis, the significance of the literary work has been approached in the light of hermeneutical concepts such as H. G. Gadamer's view that interpretation is a growth in meaning, and P. Ricoeur' s view that interpretation is a surplus of meaning. Other hermeneutical principles - such as the hermeneutical circle and distanciation in understanding - have been constantly applied to the analysed works. Another theoretical field that informs this thesis is that of reader-response criticism, especially as developed by W. Iser and R. Ingarden. The idea that literary meaning is a project based on continuous gestalt formation, rather than a definitive result, underlies all the analyses of the selected works. The reader, it is demonstrated, conjectures a whole meaning for the text, whose emerging gaps he then constantly fills in with further interpretation, allowing the subject matter of the text to grow as a meaningful project, as opposed to being retrieved as a static meaning. The poetry of three modem Maltese poets, translated into English, serves as the corpus for these applications of hermeneutical and reader-response theories. The three poets are Achille Mizzi, who offers archetypal poetry, Oliver Friggieri, whose work is lyrical, and Victor Fenech, who experimented with the new genres of prose poetry and haiku.