ABSTRACT
The narrative form of nineteenth-century novels may thus be taken as evidence of their possessing a more universal dimension. Just as important, the sort of interpretation demanded by narrative has in Jameson’s view a natural priority over other modes of explanation. The task of Marxist thought is thus not to forswear interpretation, but to rescue it from the denial and repression of History. Transcendent interpretation is transcendent by virtue, as used to be said in critical theory, of “going outside the text” to found its significance on some extratextual set of norms. Against this notion of transcendent interpretation, Deleuze and Guattari counterpose their demand for an immanent interpretation, a mode of analysis that respects the internal norms and values, and the complexity as it is given, of the reality to be interpreted.
