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Against Interpretation
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Themes
The Experience of Art and its Theorization
“Against Interpretation” analyzes not just art, but primarily the experience and theory of it as well, which she presents as equally important. Through this foundational framework, the author supports her claims that the style of interpretation predominant during her time must be replaced by a form of artistic criticism that cares more for experience than theory.
Sontag observes that the earliest experience of art involved ritual and that the earliest theory of art involved mimesis, or interpretation (95); in doing so, she orients her discussion toward a critique of interpretive principles. This discussion opens through references to cave paintings and Greek philosophy (95), though it continues by recounting well-established allegorical interpretations of authors such as Franz Kafka and Samuel Beckett. The multiplicity of interpretations serves to prove their absurdity, in Sontag’s view, and show how they act as a distraction from the immediate value of the work. By listing such examples, Sontag voices her concerns about the nature of interpretation as an aesthetic vehicle for instilling meaning in works of art and literature in place of their true, essential nature.
In contrast to this, the essay argues in favor of an approach that evades interpretive theories of art and focuses more on the experience of art itself. Through this argument, Sontag attempts to recall the sense of innocence that has been irrevocably lost after the onset of interpretation as a practice (96), and to an extent, she hopes to return to that state of affairs prior to late antiquity, a time in which art and criticism did not involve as much offense and defense as it does now.
One of the primary takeaways from this theme is the belief that experience supersedes theory in terms of importance, culturally and emotionally. Sontag thus uses this theme in her critique of interpretation as a stepping stone for her argumentative points about what needs to be done from a prescriptivist standpoint, highlighting the inherent demand for an “erotics” of art to replace its pre-existing “hermeneutics” (104).
The Dangers of Interpretation
One of the most obvious targets of Sontag’s critique is interpretation itself. Throughout the essay, she consistently points out the faults and flaws in interpretation as both a theory and a practice to be used as an approach to works of art and literature. Among these faults and flaws are its tendency to “excavate” and “destroy” texts (98), as well as its existence as an act of violating art (101).
When Sontag notes interpretation’s dangerous tendency to “dig ‘behind’ the text [and] find a sub-text which is the true one” (98), she means that it disregards works of art for what they are and imparts its own perceived sense of meaning to them. An important takeaway of this is that Sontag is arguing that this act of excavation and destruction is a reckless undertaking that must be avoided in favor of a more respectful approach to works of art and literature. Because Sontag employs a precise form of diction insofar as she uses specific and charged words like “excavate” and “destroy” (98), she effectively illustrates one of her primary points of contention in the essay’s core argument: Interpretation may be a delicate and well-intentioned procedure that is comparable to archaeological digging, but it is nonetheless damaging to the art it aims to engage with in this fashion.
When Sontag notes interpretation’s existence as an act of violating art, being “based on the highly dubious theory that a work of art is composed of items of content” (101), she underscores interpretation’s lack of validity in its treatment of art. In this sense, interpretation is intrinsically invalid directly as a result of the fact that it operates under the assumption that it can define and categorize art. According to Sontag, this constitutes a violation of art because it diminishes its value by providing us a means of mentally sorting and arranging it as if it were a material object instead of an abstract construct.
In this regard, Sontag’s key claims contend that interpretation is a dangerous idea to pursue with respect to our encounters and subsequent engagement with works of art and literature. The ways in which interpretation may be dangerous implicitly extend beyond the boundaries set by Sontag’s essay, though she stresses these ways because she hopes to rhetorically appeal to her audience to instead follow a newfound mode of artistic and literary criticism that emphasizes the importance of pleasure and experience over meaning.
Form and Content in Artistic Criticism
Thematically speaking, form and content serve as perhaps the most distinct binary that Sontag discusses to great detail. Though she references a belief that they never should’ve been considered separate in the first place (96), form and content each lead their own respective style of artistic criticism, with the former being focused on reality and the experience of art as the other remains fixated on the effort to assign meaning to a work of art. As one might expect, form corresponds to Sontag’s own ideal focus for artistic criticism while content corresponds to the style of interpretation that Sontag is writing against.
One of the most important instances of Sontag articulating a necessary action for us to undertake appears toward the end of the essay:
Our task is not to find the maximum amount of content in a work of art, much less to squeeze more content out of the work than is already there. Our task is to cut back content so that we can see the thing at all (104).
This is significant because it emphatically conveys Sontag’s perspective on the matter. Because she states that we must see art for what it is instead of seeking its hidden meaning, she is prioritizing a form-based style of artistic criticism over content-based interpretation.
Form and content thus serve as a binary that parallels the ideas of the experience of art and the theory of art, as well as the “erotics” championed and hermeneutics shunned at the very end of the essay (104). Therefore, form aligns with the experience of art and an erotics of art while content aligns with the theory of art and the prevailing hermeneutics of art. Sontag sets this trio of binaries together in an arrangement that highlights the relative function of each element as they complement one another with respect to their general purpose in the structure of her argument. Sontag argues for a greater emphasis on form over content, and in doing so, she also places an emphasis on the experience of art over the theory of art, as well as an erotics of art over the modern hermeneutics of art.
Major takeaways from this include Sontag’s intent to subvert the contemporary norm dictating form’s status as an “accessory” aspect of art (96) and her hope to instill in her audience the realization that content-based interpretation should not be perpetuated as it had been for decades prior to Sontag’s essay (99); rather, a form-based style of artistic criticism is vital for our experience of art.
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By Susan Sontag
