Literary interpretation as a dialogue between positions

Abstract

The interpretation of a reading is a dialogical act, a meeting place of different voices that converge in the reader's mind. Among those voices, are the ones that the reader recognises in the work itself—characters, narrator, author—as well as the others that he invokes and whose origin lies in previous experiences and knowledge—his own voices, voices of close people, voices of other authors and characters, etc. All of them model the thoughts and decisions of the reader and guide him in his interpretation and understanding of the work. But those voices do not always live in harmony and can be in conflict, confronted, opposed. It is in this dialogical dynamic where the most central voices that integrate others become especially relevant since the final interpretation of the reader will depend on them. The study we present aims to offer an integral and comprehensive explanation of the process of literary interpretation based on a review of the dialogic perspective of Mikhail Bakhtin (Dialogic or Polyphonic Theory) and Huber Hermans (Dialogical Self Theory). Both define the good reader as a conscious and active agent when facing a complex reading activity, such as literature.