OUR DIALOGUE WITH THE PAST

AUTHOR(S) / АУТОР(И): Zorica Lola Jelić

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DOI: 10.46793/LLD24.036J

ABSTRACT / САЖЕТАК:

We exist in our time alone, and as Benedetto Croce posited, all history is contemporary history. It is challenging, to say the least, to interpret texts solely in the historical sense, since there are many authors whose lives and/or historical circumstances are vague or unknown. How does one interpret The Hermetica, which was written over 3000 years ago? How does one know what Shakespeare truly intended with his texts since we know so little about him or his life? Yet, we still engage with these texts and find meaning. The texts speak to us in our time, circumstances, culture; in our time in history. For these reasons, in the 1980s Terence Hawkes and Hugh Grady proposed a new approach – presentism; one that would overcome the obstacles of time and history, which in all honesty was not always recorded justly. Presentism as a hermeneutical approach suggests that our interpretation of texts is always a dialogue with the past. Therefore, this paper will re-visit presentism as a contemporary hermeneutical approach and will show how the present moment always determines the interpretation

KEYWORDS / КЉУЧНЕ РЕЧИ:

presentism, the present moment, the past, dialogue, interpretation

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