Against Interpretation
''Against Interpretation '' is a 1966 collection of essays by Susan Sontag. It includes some of Sontag's best-known works, including "On Style," and the eponymous essay "Against Interpretation." In the latter, Sontag argues that the new approach to criticism and aesthetics neglects the sensuous impact and novelty of art, instead fitting works into predetermined intellectual interpretations and emphasis on the "content" or "meaning" of a work. The book was a finalist for the Arts and Letters category of the National Book Award. Summary "Against Interpretation" is Sontag's influential essay within ''Against Interpretation and Other Essays'' that discusses the divisions between two different kinds of art criticism and theory: that of formalist interpretation, and that of content-based interpretation. Sontag is strongly averse to what she considers to be contemporary interpretation, that is, an overabundance of importance placed upon the content or meaning of an artwork rather than be ...
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Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag (; January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer, philosopher, and political activist. She mostly wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay "Notes on 'Camp'", in 1964. Her best-known works include the critical works '' Against Interpretation'' (1966), '' Styles of Radical Will'' (1968), '' On Photography'' (1977), and '' Illness as Metaphor'' (1978), as well as the fi