COMMENTING AND INTERPRETATION: THE PROBLEMS OF THE CONTEMPORARY SITUATION

Abstract

In the article the problem of the changing in the contemporary cultural situation is analysed in relation with such operations as commenting and the interpretation of the text. This is associated with the change of philosophical and culture paradigm that occurred in the mid-twentieth century. The latter involves the need for philosophical, methodological and theoretical determination which is engaged in commenting (see all the resulting contexts).

The hypothesis of paper is as follows. This situation is recognized as requiring critical thinking. The tradition of the reflection – on the one hand, postmodernism inherited from the romantics and symbolists, on the other – it continues the line of neo-Kants criticism of rational knowledge («empathy» of Wilhelm Dilthey). Such criticism leads to the fact that the end of the modern era feels like the end of the rationalistic knowledge with all the ensuing reactions of it’s rational (still!) critics. The problem is the same: how the comment and interpretation will interact? Considering it with the use of «understanding sociology» and cultural anthropology, we can see that it changes the strategy of the researcher with necessity. And, once again we felt the need for rationing as the real limiter and border of the vast postmodern interpretation.

In this context, a new problem is articulating – the problem of cultural translation as translation and interpretation at the same time. The position of the observer forever is the «involved observer» position – the position of the observer, seeking meanings in the field of new understanding. The observer is simultaneously 1) the former Author, the new Art-Subject, «the interpreter-commentator», 2) former Interpreter – the analogue of art-critic, who must once again to master the idea of boundaries and limits, and 3) the former Commentator, including in its strategy the idea of the play as the basic one among other possibilities.

In the article, this approach is considered on the example of this new type of commenting-interpretation t in an essay by Joseph Brodsky about the elegy by Marina Tsvetaeva «New Year letter» on the death of Rainer Maria Rilke. As is usually, any innovation in the culture, including innovation in the knowledge, is the privilege of the art.