There has been a steady stream of articles written on the relations between conceptions of meaning and the interpretation of literature, but there remains a need for a book that both introduces and significantly contributes to an elucidation and understanding of the ways that voice and tone contribute to the determination of meaning. Only rarely have considerations of voice been brought together with considerations of meaning-determination (the work of Stanley Cavell, covered in one section of this book, is a leading example). This volume thus offers an analytically acute and culturally rich way of understanding how it is that we can productively think philosophically about meaning in language and literature in a more inclusive, expansive, and indeed human way.

Garry L. Hagberg is the James H. Ottaway Professor of Philosophy and Aesthetics at Bard College; his most recent book is Living in Words: Literature, Autobiographical Language, and the Composition of Selfhood (2023).