• Cover Image

THE THEORY OF INTERPRETIVE RELATIVITY: A UNIFIED MAP OF LITERARY THEORY

By: John Salvatore Guagliardo

The Theory Of Interpretive Relativity: A Unified Map Of Literary Theory is a comprehensive study organizing and mapping all literary interpretive theory, from classical philosophy to postmodern theory, into one formulaic model. Interpretive Relativity uses, for its method of organizational strategy, the philosophy of relativism to explain how all theoretical interpretation compliment one another rather than contradict one another. This thesis uses extensive graphs and illustrations to aid in the visualization of how mapping theoretical interpretations is possible. The piece of literature, work of art, that is used through out the study is Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In other words, this thesis show how the philosophy of Einstein’s general theory of relativity could be applied to Hamlet....

“The long concatenations of simple and easy reasoning which geometricians use in achieving their most difficult demonstrations gave me occasion to imagine that all matters which may enter the human mind were interrelated in the same fashion.” -- René Descartes ...

I. INTRODUCTION: MATHEMATICAL CONSTRUCT STRATEGIES FOR GRAPHING LITERARY INTERPRETATION THEORIES INTO A VISUAL FIGURE, DEFINING TERMS 1 II. MAPPING LITERARY THEORY: DEFINING THE BODY OF LITERATURE, Ln, AND MESSAGE, EMBODIED IN ART, Ln 10 III. FORMING THE X AXIS: SETTING VALUES FOR X AS SIGN, SIGNIFICATION, AND SIGNAL (X1, X2, X3) 18 X1: Sign, Encoding Meaning 21 X2: Signification: The Three Aspects to the Value X2, Concept in a Medium, X21, X22, X23 23 X3: Signal, Decoding Meaning Plotting the 2s OF B’s X31, X32, X33 30 IV. FORMING THE Y AXIS: THE AUDIENCE’S INFINITE MULTIFARIOUS “REALIZATION” 36 The Search for 1: The Messenger and the Author 38 Y 1: The Author’s text 45 Y 2: The Text 50 Y 3: The World 54 Y 4: The Reader 57 V. FORMING THE Z AXIS: VALUES FOR Z, APPLIED RHETORICAL IDEOLOGY 65 Z 1: Marxist Literary Criticism 67 Z 2: Deconstruction Criticism 71 Z 3: Multicultural Literary Criticism 77 Z 4: Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism 80 Z 5: Liberation Literary Criticism 84 VI. CONCLUSION 87...

Read More