# Lit Crit term
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lit-crit-term/340318
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [January 17, 2006, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lit-crit-term/340318 "2006-01-17T04:21:27Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [January 19, 2006, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lit-crit-term/340318/41 "2006-01-19T04:41:54Z")
> [@Sampiro](#):
>
> Just think of Christ dying on the cross for your sins, only the cross is covered with snow and the people standing at the foot are all penguins. “Icy Jesus”, as used in the sentence “My cat’s breath smells like eisegesis.”
My Dad has a Christmas card he saved from his tour in Vietnam. Cover: “Let’s put the religion back in Christmas!” Inside: A crucified Santa. On a snow-covered Golgotha, with reindeer looking up at him.
---
### Author:  [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)
#### Post date: [January 19, 2006, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lit-crit-term/340318/42 "2006-01-19T17:17:30Z")
I believe you’re talking about [Reader-Response.](http://academic.regis.edu/jkarpins/Midterm%20En%20466/literary_theory_definitions.htm)
> [@](#):
>
> The reader does not pinpoint and extract meaning from a text-object, noting his/her subject position distinct from the object, but creates meaning in this simultaneous intersection of “the reader’s experience, formal units, and the structure of intention.”
Or, as an old English professor of mine once put it, “Plato was right. Poets lie. Poems do not.”
Authors do frequently give contradictory and mutually exclusive readings of their own works, so relying upon an author’s commentary on his own work is a bad idea. After all, if the author needs to add commentary in order for the reader to get the correct understanding of the text does not speak well of the work. It either stands alone or it doesn’t. Samuel Beckett was once asked to explain _Waiting for Godot_ and replied, “If I could have said it any better, I would have.”
---
### Author:  [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)
#### Post date: [January 19, 2006, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lit-crit-term/340318/43 "2006-01-19T22:07:45Z")
> [@Bagkitty\_the\_return](#):
>
> There is a specific term in literary criticism (and art criticism and film criticism) that is used to describe the meaning projected into a text or work by the reader/critic, that is in addition (and in fact be more important) than what was the artist’s intention. I have been wracking my brain for hours trying to remember what the term is, or come up with a way of finding it on google, and I can’t. :smack: Perhaps the teeming millions can help.
Seriously, please continue to elaborate. I honestly don’t think there IS a word that frames “meaning projected into a text or work by the reader/critic” as a good thing, as you seem to suggest.
This is how “found art” happens, by recontextualizing non-art as art; by redefining the “frame.” Is it something along those lines? Or some metaphorical usage of pentimento or palimpsest?
---
### Author:  [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)
#### Post date: [January 19, 2006, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lit-crit-term/340318/44 "2006-01-19T22:50:49Z")
> [@lissener](#):
>
> Seriously, please continue to elaborate. I honestly don’t think there IS a word that frames “meaning projected into a text or work by the reader/critic” as a good thing, as you seem to suggest.
There’s definitely a term for this. I’ll be damned if I can remember what it is, now, though. (Reader Response rings the most bells, however) The term comes up in lit classes when you have to hear about two schools of thought regarding literature: A. art is self-contained, and should be, and the only significance of writing is what the author puts down on paper. vs B. writing is given meaning by the _readers_’ outside experience, and it is the author’s intend for readers to extrapolate from their own history. Then the lecture usually disintegrates into questions about how does symbolism fit into these divergent schools of thought.
**Bagkitty\_the\_return** , see if you can find a book meant for a Critical Literature course. It will probably be in there.
---
### Author:  [@HazelNutCoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HazelNutCoffee)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2006, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lit-crit-term/340318/45 "2006-01-20T02:06:32Z")
> [@Sampiro](#):
>
> Just think of Christ dying on the cross for your sins, only the cross is covered with snow and the people standing at the foot are all penguins. “Icy Jesus”, as used in the sentence “My cat’s breath smells like eisegesis.”
I was wondering about the pronunciation myself. Thanks for the helpful mnemonic. Where’s the emphasis, though? Is it EIseGEsis?
---
### Author:  [@bagkitty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bagkitty)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2006, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lit-crit-term/340318/46 "2006-01-20T04:29:13Z")
> [@elfkin477](#):
>
> There’s definitely a term for this. I’ll be damned if I can remember what it is, now, though. . .
Yep, damned if I can remember either :smack: I think I am going to abandon this quest on the board… but some day, when I find the word, I will resurrect this thread and post the answer.
THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO TRIED TO FIGURE IT OUT… I APPRECIATE THE TIME AND EFFORT
---
### Author:  [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2006, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lit-crit-term/340318/47 "2006-01-20T11:55:26Z")
> [@Sampiro](#):
>
> Just think of Christ dying on the cross for your sins, only the cross is covered with snow and the people standing at the foot are all penguins. “Icy Jesus”, as used in the sentence “My cat’s breath smells like eisegesis.”
I was thinking of the related term “hepmejeebus” which is often muttered by people reading such topics.
---
### Author:  [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2006, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lit-crit-term/340318/48 "2006-01-20T13:34:15Z")
Hermeneutics?
Regards,
Shodan
---
### Author:  [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2006, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lit-crit-term/340318/49 "2006-01-20T16:07:03Z")
i see jesus
they don’t know they’re jesus
---
### Author:  [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2006, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lit-crit-term/340318/50 "2006-01-20T21:22:14Z")
> [@HazelNutCoffee](#):
>
> I was wondering about the pronunciation myself. Thanks for the helpful mnemonic. Where’s the emphasis, though? Is it EIseGEsis?
You can see the pronunciation key or listen to it here: [http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=eisegesis](http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=eisegesis)
[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lit-crit-term/340318.md?page=2)