Date of Award
2008
Document Type
Thesis
Publication Status
Version of Record
Submission Date
October 2026
Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]
Berlatsky, Eric L.
Abstract
Advances in literary studies have expanded the multitude of interpretations possible of a single work, perhaps too far. Positive progress from here requires constructing a way to avoid the chaos of an interpretive free- for-all without reverting to the debunked, totali zing systems of old. Limiting Interpretive Possibilities finds in Italo Calvina's If on a winter's night a traveler and Samuel Beckett's Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable the model for a combinatorial literature that respects the key, inalienable elements of author, reader, work, and universe. Any reading that fits into this framework is a "possible" interpretation of the work, while readings that deny one or more of these elements are " impossible." Ultimately, a literary work has room for all its possible interpretations, which co-exist in a combinatorial manner that accounts for even interpretations that have yet to emerge, ensuring that no new way of reading will fundamentally alter the original work.
Extent
86 p.
Recommended Citation
Ardoin, Paul, "Limiting Interpretive Possibilities in Beckett and Calvina" (2008). Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2000 - 2009. 1503.
https://digitalcommons.fau.edu/etd_general_5/1503
Identifier
FA00000888
Comments
Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters|Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2008.|FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection|Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters