Literature unbound: William Desmond's metaxu and the opening of literary hermeneutics

Abstract

In a 2017 article, Suzanne Choo suggests that the literature classroom should eschew insular aesthetic concerns in favour of a cosmopolitan ethical approach. In response to Choo, Liam Gearon believes that a prescribed and predetermined hermeneutic undermines the freedom of the pedagogue and the pupils. In this paper, I side with Gearon against moving the literature classroom solely towards ethical ends. Using William Desmond's idea of the fourfold sense of being as an analogy for the process of reading and experiencing texts, I suggest that complications arise from establishing a univocal, or determinate, end to literary hermeneutics. I will further explore the indeterminacies extant in the reading process. While these indeterminacies do not preclude communicability, they make impossible a singular, codified purpose to literary studies or interpretive frameworks. I use Plato's Timaeus and Critias as a model for the metaxological and, finally, offer ways to open up a metaxological hermeneutic in the classroom.