Four Levels of Interpretive Development Based on Tilden’s Principle of Wholeness

Abstract

Freeman Tilden argues in his Fifth Principle of Interpretation the importance of interpreting wholes for whole people. Yet his examples reveal that in demonstrating wholeness in the form of an interpretive theme, he uses but one perspective for each of his interpreted objects (i.e., birds and places). Based on the premise that every object is enacted through one of multiple possible perspectives, to interpret from a single perspective then must be partial because it reveals only a part of an object, thus falling short of wholeness. This multiplicity of perspectives results in a wholeness interpretation spectrum from a single to a near infinite number of perspectives along which all interpreters fall. This article posits four levels on this scale from pre-interpretation whereby no real interpretation occurs to a post-interpretive enactment whereby the interpreter integrates multiple non-consensus perspectives for a much richer or more whole—holistic—interpretation.