I was extremely intimidated by this reading, particularly because I had to look up one of the five words in the title of chapter four (distanciation). I actually came across a great definition, which eased me into the chapter. Although I have to say that not knowing the meaning of distanciation actually had "the effect of distancing or estranging (me)..." Anyway, I found chapter four this most challenging, it seemed more esoteric and theorertical than the others. It also read as a sort of lesson in grammar- but I had a hard time following Ricoeur from point to point. I found Ricoeur's example about "shutting the door" very helpful, particularly in his explanation of illocutionary and perlocutionary acts.

I had trouble with Ricoeur's penchant for defining certain terms over and over. Explanation and understanding are explained so many different ways that I am still unsure exactly what meaning I should take from them. I suppose that is the point, and that in different circumstances these terms serve different functions.

Ricoeur seems to agree with Barthes' idea that a text changes once it has been written down, particularly in relation to the idea of the writerly text, "writing renders the text autonomous with respect to the intention of the author. What the text signifies no longer coincides with what the author meant (139)." Ricoeur identitfies his desire to think of the work (or was it the text?) as a posthumous prodution, because that would limit the dialogue between the reader and the writer. But even if one is reading a posthumous work, the writer's life and maybe even "ghost" are still present. Because although I might read a poem and get formulate my own reading (explanation and understanding) of it, my explanation and understanding of set poem can only be improved by looking into biographical information about the poet, and finding out her situation in life at the time of writing the work. As we have discussed in class, every reading that we do changes the work, and a work is never the same as the moment when it was first new to a particular reader. I am still trying to figure out exactly what it is that Ricoeur would have us do, and also how does he want readers to go about reading his text/work/metaphor?