Literature and the art of (mis)interpretation

ONE of the most influential books in Western literature is the 17th century Spanish novel Don Quixote de La Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes. In the novel, the titular character, Don Quixote, went mad after becoming obsessed with the numerous chivalrous romances he had read. Confusing reality with fantasy, he decided to go on a quest to become a knight-errant himself.

I was reminded of Don Quixote as I pondered upon the purpose and value of literature as a specialization. Quixote’s journey, filled with adventurous mishaps, can be read as a parody of literature itself.

Perhaps easily the most misunderstood discipline in academia, literature is constantly on a quest to be understood. As such, I found myself wondering whether literary works have ever been truly understood or if they have instead been perpetually misinterpreted.

But this misinterpretation is not rooted in the nature of literature itself. Rather, it lies in the institutions that are connected to it – political, cultural or social, among others. Literature cannot define itself; instead, the institutionalisation of these forces within it has shaped what I call literary academia.

Shaped by the contexts and styles of these institutions, literary academia may have been responsible for imposing structures and assumptions that obscure the essence of literary inquiry.

In Malaysia, for example, literature is often framed within the larger national project of producing morally upright and socially responsible citizens. School syllabi highlight texts that reflect moral values, loyalty and national identity, often at the expense of critical thought or aesthetic exploration.

University programmes are not free from such framing, too; the study of literature is frequently aligned with nation-building, employability or institutional KPIs rather than the pursuit of intellectual or philosophical engagement. Consequently, the institutional structures that sustain literary studies also limit it, determining what can be read, taught, or even valued as “literature”.

For example, in secondary schools, literature is often taught not for its intellectual depth or engagement with ideas but as a tool to educate students about moral values, social conduct or civic responsibility. As a result, literature’s didacticism inadvertently becomes its central purpose, reducing it to a vehicle for moral instruction.

When literature is framed this way, its interpretive and critical dimensions are displaced by institutional objectives.

Perhaps we could teach students about the importance of having good intentions in every aspect of their work. Yet, intention itself has often been misread despite it being the soul of individual development – the foundation that shapes moral, emotional and intellectual growth. In literature, intention is seldom analysed or theorized, and is often seen as vague. Yet again, it is precisely this vagueness that makes it the bed of misinterpretations.

The question of intention, whether authorial or interpretive, marks the space between creation and reception, between meaning and misreading. Within this space lies both the limitation and the depth of literary academia.

Intellectualism, however, is necessary in shaping maturity. Literary academia, particularly within the Western learning tradition of misinterpretations, forms a trajectory towards intellectual maturity and responsibility. Misinterpretation is interpretation.

Teaching students about colonialism, for example, has the potential of engaging them with high-level concepts such as systemic bullying and diplomacy. The intention of the colonialist may have often been interpreted as benevolent, said to bring order, progress and integration to multicultural societies.

Many well-meaning people have accepted this narrative of colonialism as one which brings improvement and civilisation; that the colonisers acted out of altruism and enlightenment.

Imagine the colonial subjects seeing their colonisers through this same altruistic lens, thinking they came to improve their lives. Little did they realise that they were caught in a system of domination and control. They were gradually taught to question their own cultural and religious practices, believing such questioning to be a sign of growth and modernity.

In simple terms, the subjects did not realise that they had become victims of systemic bullying. They allowed it because they misinterpreted the colonisers’ so-called altruistic intention.

What we have failed to teach students today is that misinterpretation itself is an art, one perfected and perpetuated through the colonisers’ work in art, literature and education. It was,

and still remains, a necessary form, one that disguises domination as benevolence and knowledge as progress.

It is this very process, the institutional translation of literature into moral or social instruction, that exemplifies the necessary misinterpretation of literary academia.

The act of teaching, framing and legitimising literature within educational systems sustains the discipline, but at the same time constraints its meaning.

Perhaps what we can learn from literary academia in terms of these necessary misinterpretations is that the world itself has always been misinterpreted. The world, much like literature, is a stage upon which meanings are continuously performed, revised and misunderstood.

Still, these misinterpretations, often unappreciated, misunderstood and even condemned, are essential to the way understanding itself evolves. They remind us that knowledge, like literature, lives through reinterpretation, and that misreading may not be a failure of understanding, but its most necessary form.

ASSOC PROF DR NORITAH OMAR

Faculty of Education and Liberal Arts

Inti International University

Nilai, Negri Sembilan