P. D. Juhl

"The appeal to the text: what are we appeaking to?"

K. M. Newton

pp. 57-60

in: K. M. Newton (ed), Twentieth-century literary theory, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1997

Abstract

When we appeal to the text in support of an interpretation, we also invoke some general criterion such as, most commonly, coherence or, less frequently, complexity. We say that the text, or a certain part of the text, supports this interpretation rather than that because under the former the text is more coherent, or more complex, than under the latter.