Interpretive participation must be physical, novel, and significant to count

Evidence

To me, it is elementary that participation, in our sphere of interpretation, must be physical. When you try to make it include what is wholly or predominantly mental, the word is stretched beyond meaning. Not only must it imply a physical act, it must also be something that the participant himself would regard as, for him, novel, special, and important. I cannot believe that a man who eats hasty pudding and codfish balls really thinks that he is participating in the life of the provincial Boston of Cotton Mather; on the other hand, I am quite sure that when he takes the barge ride on the old C&O Canal, in our National Capital Parks, he feels the distinct pleasure of reverting to a period that has long gone. — Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage, 465

Categorization

• DEFINE: Tilden’s operative definition of participation: physical, novel to the participant, and regarded as important — with the hasty pudding example showing mere consumption of period food doesn’t qualify.
• XREF: Ties to the polyad’s listening/observation-as-method thread — this sets the boundary between embodied engagement and merely mental imagining of the past. — connects to: Interpreters should deliberately seek every chance to add participation and demonstration — Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage, 472; Living activity transforms a preserved house from relic into peopled home — Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage, 475; Interpretation reveals meanings rather than simply communicating facts — Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage, 69 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Interpreters must feel the beauty they interpret or they fail #exemplifies (0.82) — Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage, 523
• Law’s meaning requires participant-spectators whose presence makes its motion meaningful. #expands (0.75) — Philip Chase Bobbitt, Reflections Inspired by My Critics, 485
• Interpretation reveals meanings rather than simply communicating facts #qualifies (0.72) — Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage, 69