On The Limits Of Annotation

Umberto Eco (1932-) is an Italian. Eco is knowledgeable, in philosophy, aesthetics, semiotics, literary creation, and many other areas has his own unique contribution. He is a world-famous philosopher, semiotics, literary critic and writer. In 1962, in his popular book "the Open Work?", Eco examined the contemporary art forms, criticized the conception of traditional literary theory that attach the author to the text, thought the text is finished by the collaboration of the author and the reader, attached great importance to the role of appreciator in an appreciation activities. But in 1980s and 1990s, as reception aesthetics, reader-response criticism and deconstructivism intensified, the rights of readers have been amplified to the limit, the reader’s rights completely above the author, the meaning of the text became illusory because of the infinite amplification of the reader’s rights. For this kind of extreme situation, in the Tanner Lectures in 1990, Eco put forward to against overinterpretation, thought should set limits to the interpretation activities. He put forward the conception of "the textual intention", "the model reader" and "the model reader", it was his efforts to try to limit the interpretation activities. Eco’s hermeneutics theory can classified into three aspects:advocates the interpretation, against overinterpretation, set limits for interpretation. He stressed that the effective interpretation based on the text, and then seek the dynamic balance between text, author, reader and context, aimed to interpret literary works objectively.