The Place of Text, Author, and Reader According to Umberto Eco

One of the most important topics in Modern Hermeneutics is the idea of Open Text and its interpretable nature. In his aesthetic analysis of literary works، Eco emphasizes the existence of a code system and its interpretability، and while criticizing the “author’s intention”، believes in a dialectical relation between “text’s intention” and “reader’s intention”. Based on his formulation، although the text requires different readings، it does not give way to any sort of readings because the acceptable reading takes place when the “ideal reader” reads the text within the frameworks imposed by the very text. As such، this is the “text strategy” that determines the dimensions of interpretation of which the reader can by no means go beyond. The reader through discovering the inner-textual relations and following the extra-textual elements، begins his reading to accomplish the job already started by the”ideal author”. Text، from this perspective، is no longer a physical phenomenon، but a potentiality that will be actualized in the process of reading and interpretation.