In this wide-ranging meditation on the nature and purpose of hermeneutics, Gerald L. Bruns argues that hermeneutics is not merely a contemporary theory but an extended family of questions about understanding and interpretation that predate the beginning of writing. Bruns situates the basic questions of hermeneutics against a background of different cultural traditions and philosophical topics, discussing for example, the interpretation of oracles, the quarrel between philosophy and poetry, Rabbinical midrash, and the nature of Romantic hermeneutics.