The Dialectic of Reading and Reception: An Unceasing Dynamic Movement

Abstract

This article examines the dialectic of reading and reception as a living and continuous relationship between the author, the text, and the reader. It argues that the literary text does not achieve its full meaning except through the act of reading and the multiple interpretations it enables. The article highlights the critical shift from the centrality of the author toward the role of the reader and recipient, then discusses several modes of reading, including psychological reading, which links the text to the author’s inner world and motives; hermeneutic reading, which explores implicit meanings and cultural and historical contexts; and deconstructive reading, which opens the text to plural meanings and internal structural analysis. The article draws on examples from Arabic rhetorical and critical heritage, as well as Arabic poetry, to demonstrate how reading reveals meaning, especially through phonetic and stylistic interpretation. It concludes that reading is a renewable act that does not stop at one level of understanding, but continually uncovers further aesthetic and intellectual layers within the text.