Quote by: Susan Sontag

Today is such a time, when the project of interpretation is largely reactionary, stifling. Like the fumes of the automobile and of heavy industry which befoul the urban atmosphere, the effusion of interpretations of art today poisons our sensibilities. In a culture whose already classical dilemma is the hypertrophy of the intellect at the expense of energy and sensual capability, interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art. Even more. It is the revenge of the intellect upon the world. To interpret is to impoverish, to deplete the world - in order to set up a shadow world of 'meanings.' It is to turn the world into this world. ('This world'! As if there were any other.) The world, our world, is depleted, impoverished enough. Away with all duplicates of it, until we again experience more immediately what we have.


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Author Bio


  • NameSusan Sontag
  • DescriptionAmerican writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist
  • BornJanuary 16, 1933
  • DiedDecember 28, 2004
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionWriter; Film Director; Screenwriter; Professor; Essayist; Novelist
  • WorksOn Photography; Against Interpretation; Illness As Metaphor; AIDS And Its Metaphors; Under The Sign Of Saturn
  • AwardsJerusalem Prize; Prince Of Asturia Literary Prize; Peace Prize Of The German Book Trade; National Book Award; George Polk Award