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Re JtB's 'context is all' in the 'Strokes' thread (to which I can't gain access; it seems to have died), it can be useful to consider interpretation as the application of various sorts of framing set out in Framing and Interpretation:
extratextual framing - interpretations based on 'outside' or extra information. Here we're drawing on our knowledge of the world gained experientially or textually.
intratextual framing - interpretations based on the flow and relationships of words and graphics within (intra) the text.
intertextual framing - interpretations which relate one text type to another, for example generically or by linking a book (or album cover) with a particular discourse. And we also call on extratextual knowledge of the discursive field to make this connection between texts.
circumtextual framing - interpretations made on the basis of the title of the text, its circumstances of presentation, the material location of the product in space (say in a book or record shop).
To take the Rammstein cover (which I found interesting btw) as an example. When I first bought the CD, I reflected on the cover and related the title Herzeleid (Heartache) intratextually to the background of golden sunburst flowering and and what seemed to me to be the cohesion of the group as represented, their closeness, the historical moment of which may all too soon pass. Hence perhaps the sombre, reflective expressions on the faces of the band, who can be rendered vulnerable by heartache, despite what appears to be their great physical strength? A further connection along these lines can be made with the lyrics from which the album takes its title:
Bewahret einander vor Herzeleid
denn kurz ist die Zeit die ihr beisammen seid
Denn wenn euch auch viele Jahre vereinen
einst werden sie wie Minuten euch Scheinen
Herzeleid
Bewahret einander vor der Zweisamkeit
(Save each other from heartache
for short is the time you have together
For even if you are united for many years
one day will seem like minutes to you
Heartache
Save yourselves from the loneliness of pairing off)
It may well be, however, that a Germanist could come up with some sort of intertextual links for these lyrics which would add a further dimension. Or someone like Rothkoid, who's had the good fortune to see the band perform live, might add some other (extratextual or circumtextual) details which could change my interpretation. |
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