Criticism and interpretation: bringing Benjamin and Gadamer closer together

Abstract

In this paper I am to trace the connections between on one hand the notions of critics and of criticability, both present in The concept of criticism in german romanticism, by Walter Benjamin, and on the other hand Gadamer’s notions of hermeneutic circle and of the work of art as a text. Doing so, I intend to specify the activity of the critic as the act of making the very process of reading and interpretating become public.