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John Horvath Jr., editor.
End Note* on
HERMENEUTICS
'Hermeneutics' derives from the Greek word for interpreter and the word is related to the name of the Greek god Hermes whose role was to interpret divine messages. Hermes was believed to play tricks on those he was supposed to give messages to, often changing the messages and influencing the interpretation. The Greek word thus has the basic meaning of one who makes the meaning clear.
Hermeneutics scholars investigate the development and study of theories for the interpretation and understanding of texts. Basically, readers do hermeneutics when they try to understqand a poem from the poet's point of view. Think of a poem by Edgar Poe - how, if at all, did he transfer his alcoholism into his poetry; was 'Lenore' a le mot juste or the young woman Poe had married. Your seconday school English teacher might have had you consider such questions. But, when you get to 'what might Poe consider important in this poem' you have turned to hermeneutics.
In contemporary usage in religious studies, hermeneutics often refers to study of the interpretation of scriptural texts. The questions asked address issues of authorship, context, and changes in meaning from - for example - one sect or another. Understanding and interpreting the scriptural can result in social change of great magnitude (such as the Moslem conquests of North Africa and the Middle East). Few poems hold the power of the scriptural; but those poems which do often define the society and culture in which the text is found: Dante's Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso are written in the 'vulgar' language of the common Italian speaker rather than Lation, the language of the church. Leaves of Grass marks America culture as individualistic to the point of egotism so that the work can be understood as a forerunner to modern poetry and its themes of self-analysis.
Essentially, hermeneutics cultivates one's ability to understand things from another's point of view, and to appreciate the cultural and social forces that may have influenced their outlook. In contemporary usage, Hermeneutics becomes the process of applying the reader's understanding to interpreting the meaning of written texts; and it may also address the symbolic artifacts (the mirror in PRUFROCK; a particular work of sculpture in "Pygmalion") - indeed, hermeneutics may be a thorough understanding of situation and site in a given text such as Don Quixote or architecture in Camelot), which may be either historic or contemporary.
In the last two centuries, the scope of hermeneutics has expanded to include the investigation and interpretation not only of textual and artistic works, but of human behaviour generally, including language and patterns of speech, social institutions, and ritual behaviours (such as religious ceremonies, political rallies, football matches, rock concerts, etc.). Hermeneutics interprets or inquires into the meaning and import of these phenomena, through understanding the point of view and 'inner life' of an insider, or the first-person perspective of an engaged participant in these phenomena (Studs Terkel and George Plimpton come readily to mind...but also in the poetry of Sylvia Plath or Phyllis Wheatley. Reader interest in such text is a long trandition especially in the reader of slave narratives in 19th century America.
The 'End Note' is a brief essay written by the Editor or his guest, on any subject of interest. If the Endnote is by John Horvath Jr please give proper attribuion: that the work is that of (http://www.horvath.ws) JohnHorvath Jr, poet and editor of poetryREpairs (www.poetryrep[airs.com) - links given in the parentheses.
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