Fish

Rivkin, Julie and Michael Ryan. Eds. Literary Theory: An Anthology. 2nd Edition. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004.

Reading this selection from Fish's "Interpreting the Variorum," several problems appear.

Fish holds that the practices of "interpretive communities" predetermine readings.

For Fish, this is particularly powerful thing, because he considers the text to be what is read, not its object. Discussing a set of hypothetical readers with varying reactions to Lycidas, he comments, "A reader other than myself who, when presented with Lycidas (please keep in mind that the status of Lycidas is at issue), puts into execution a different set of interpretive strategies will perform a different succession of interpretive acts.) One of us might then be tempted to complain ot the other that we could not possibly be reading the same poem . . . and he would be right; for each of us would be reading the poem he made" (218).

Fish's wording rejects any difference made by the poem itself. Surely he would not deny that one reader using one consistent reading strategy will find Lycidas and Ashbery's "Skaters" different. But even this simple admission means that one cannot reasonably favor text or interpretation in an analysis, and that Fish misrepresents the activity he describes in claiming that "each of us would be reading the poem he made": the poem is as least as validly represented as an articulated entity that includes its readers and readings.

One might dismiss such distinctions as semantic equivocation, but Fish demonstrates the potential for error within a few pages as he good-naturedly noodges his reader towards his conclusion: "knowing full well that you will agree with me (that is, understand) only if you already agree with me" (221).

Here Fish baits his hook: as I start to disagree, I appear to demonstrate his point. But note here a couple assumptions in his particular writing strategy. He gives agree with me as equivalent to understand. He doesn't mean anything so unsubtle as that understanding consists in alliance with one Stanley Fish, but that understanding consists in sharing common assumptions. This statement differs sharply from asserting only that the judgment of understanding conferred by one interpretive community will depend on a convergence of reading strategies. Fish states that understanding itself amounts to this social relationship as opposed to, say, some correspondence to a physical text in a given set of contexts.

If one follows Fish's statements syllogistically, the text effectively disappears -- something Fish clearly does not intend, since he actually grants qualities to texts and distinguishes extensively between texts himself.

Another factor that gets lost is the effect of the text itself on interpretative strategy. Does one not form an interpretive strategy primarily by reading and interpreting texts? If this is so, it stands to reason that readers' interpretative strategies tend to be different at the end of a book than at the beginning. How often does Fish himself note that Milton plays against one's interpretive strategy? Does Fish suppose that Milton will frustrate my strategies every few lines, but that I won't wake up to that by Book X?