Literary processing and interpretation: Towards empirical foundations

The present article provides a framework for evaluating literary interpretation and critical analysis. The framework provides a method of approaching the “text” that involves distinguishing text features from text effects . In addition, a definition of the “reader” is described in terms of populations of readers. Within this framework, one criterion for critical interpretation of a text is that it incorporate common literary effects within a given population; such an interpretation is termed a potent interpretation. One of the chief benefits of this criterion is that it can be evaluated empirically. The approach is illustrated with a Postmodern crime story, Emma Zunz , by Jorge Luis Borges: A critical analysis of Emma Zunz is described and then evaluated in two experiments.