ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the literary-theoretical strand of the ‘theory of uncertainty’ and describes the development of the notion of undecidability of meaning within this context. Thereby it sheds light on an extensive discussion with fundamental and continued relevance for the study of literature; and it establishes a new framework for a number of seminal contributions to literary theory to be read and discussed within.
The chapter provides a map that encompasses theories of uncertainty of meaning and interpretation from the nineteenth century through the twentieth, including in the same field a number of significant movements and ideas: the agnosticism and existential uncertainty of the late nineteenth century; literary Impressionism; concepts of uncertainty developed in early twentieth-century literary theory; the notions of ambiguity and plurisignation in New Criticism; the theories on literary meaning and interpretation in poststructuralist and deconstructive theory as well as a selection of late twentieth-century theories of uncertainty.
The mapping of the theory of uncertainty serves to provide terminological clarification, shed light on the variety of notions of uncertainty, and often overlooked theoretical distinctions and to illustrate the robustness, sophistication and relevance of these theories as well as their inherent problems, limitations and contradictions.
