“In place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art” (14). Thus famously concludes “Against Interpretation”, the title essay of Susan Sontag’s Against Interpretation and Other Essays (1966), a book whose oracular pronouncements are eminently quotable and easily mocked, if also endlessly compelling and productive to judge by the extended tradition of commentary Sontag’s never-out-of-print first essay collection has generated (see Shusterman and Rush). It is also, in my experience, a difficult book to draw conclusions from, or be conclusive about, especially given Sontag’s combination of “anthropological” and “occasional” procedures.
Most of the volume derives from reviews or review essays occasioned by the publication of a book, the production of a play, the (American) release of a new film. Of the book’s original 26 chapters, 18 are drawn from material originally published as reviews...
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Citation: Poague, Leland. "Against Interpretation". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 27 September 2015 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=6811, accessed 09 June 2026.]
