Biopoetics and Hermeneutics: The Postal Metaphor in Il Postino

abstract:This article is a reading of a novel and film that promotes the primacy of language in human affairs. An interdisciplinary approach combines Heideggerian hermeneutics with Darwinian literary criticism. From a Heideggerian perspective, one's existence is essentially the hermeneutic activity of interpretation, since one's being (Dasein) primordially entails a situated, questioning, self-interpretation. The questioning of what it means to be is an integral aspect of a projective hermeneutics. The critic's intense and passionate questioning of one's temporal facticity forms the basis of a practical form of criticism. Darwinian literary criticism also presupposes what it means to be human is to share a universal, evolved human nature that includes an "instinctive tendency to acquire an art," or language. Practically speaking, an innovative fusion of Darwinian literary criticism, or biopoetics, with Heideggerian hermeneutics is appropriate because both perspectives acknowledge a primordial understanding as the basis for all interpretation. Further, from both perspectives, the question is not simply whether narrative structures inform and influence human experience, but the degree to which narratives are specifically designed to transmit information and knowledge about the precarious human condition.

摘要：本文是对一部小说及相关电影的解读，该小说和电影强调了语言在人类事务中的首要地位。一种跨学科的方法将海德格尔的诠释学与达尔文主义文学批评相结合。从海德格尔的视角来看，人的存在本质上是诠释性的阐释活动，因为人的此在（Dasein）从根本上包含一种情境化的、追问式的自我阐释。对存在意义的追问是一种投射性诠释学的一个固有方面。批评家对人的时间性事实性的强烈而充满激情的追问构成了一种实用批评形式的基础。达尔文主义文学批评也假定，作为人意味着共享一种普遍的、进化而来的人性，其中包括一种“获得一种技艺的本能倾向”，即语言。从实际角度来讲，将达尔文主义文学批评或生物诗学与海德格尔的诠释学进行创新性融合是恰当的，因为这两种视角都承认一种原初的理解是所有阐释的基础。此外，从这两种视角来看，问题不仅仅在于叙事结构是否告知和影响人类经验，还在于叙事在多大程度上是专门为传递有关不稳定的人类状况的信息和知识而设计的。