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Post by Marina on Jun 7, 2011 19:43:02 GMT -5
But can the reader claim that the author has failed in intent? After all, they are the creator of the work, and even if a fraction of other readers agree with the author, then their opinion must be accounted for (or must it *shifty eyes*)
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Post by Fuck Yeah Dion on Jun 7, 2011 19:43:26 GMT -5
Psh. We're English majors. None of us are any more intelligent than anyone else haha. Suppose you read a work by an author with which you're not familiar. You develop an interpretation of that work. For instance, you say the book is an allegory for how elephants are the best animal on the planet (they are), but then, you come across an interview with the author. He says that that he wrote the book as an attack on elephants, and that he actually hates them. What does the work actually mean at that point? Is such a scenario even possible? Oh, I see, I see. See, I haven't studied literary theory yet, which is why I hesitate to engage. But if the author wrote a book attacking elephants and I read it and interpreted it as completely the opposite, then the author either failed in his intent, or I'm an idiot. If there are other people who agree with me, then I'd again say that the author failed in his intent. If then there are two groups of people with differing opinions, one believing that the he's defending and the other attacking elephants; then I think the author can be dead, because from that point on it's up to the reader to decide what the hell the guy meant. But then again, if the guy says that it's what he meant... how can his opinion not count? This is the 'chicken or the egg' argument. I like this post, and I can tell you're going to love literary theory, because you approached the question with an open mind. I know English majors who have received an example similar to this and said, "I DON'T CARE ABOUT THE EXAMPLE! THE AUTHOR ISN'T DEAD. THAT MAKES NO SENSE." |
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Post by Dodger Thirteen on Jun 7, 2011 19:44:05 GMT -5
 PANDAS. And horses. I think that scenario is possible. I think that when discussing the book, you'd have to acknowledge what the author intended in writing it, and admit that that is what the book is about generally, or that would be 'the blurb' of the book, as it were, but you wouldn't be wrong in saying "but actually, I read it to mean that elephants are really fucking rad and that's always what it's going to mean to me, whatever the author intended". That was garbled, but I hope you get what I mean. In that sense, isn't the author dead? If it's possible that the work supports two completely contradictory points, and it's reasonable to cast off the author's intended meaning, can't that same logic be stretched to every other author and every other work? Is the author dead? To proclaim him/her as such is to deny the author's intent, in which case, the work itself can arguably be thrown out the window as a failed piece which has no value, i.e. trash. I didn't vote in your poll because I'm of the opinion that the answer is "yes and no." One of the most important things that I have learned in my English major career is that the answer is never just "Yes," but always "Yes, and..." with the answer very, very rarely being just a flat-out "No." So to answer your question, "Yes, and...". The author's intent is valid, but so is the reader's. It's back to that idea I presented about the subconscious, that it crops up everywhere and the author's intent could be one thing, but they subconsciously added another. That's why we "read into" things, because there's always another option, or another opinion, but all are (usually) equally valid. |
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Post by Dodger Thirteen on Jun 7, 2011 19:45:12 GMT -5
I like this post, and I can tell you're going to love literary theory, because you approached the question with an open mind. I know English majors who have received an example similar to this and said, "I DON'T CARE ABOUT THE EXAMPLE! THE AUTHOR ISN'T DEAD. THAT MAKES NO SENSE." Seconded. Literary theory is like philosophy, in that if you don't have an open mind for multiple options, you're going to end up with a headache. That being said, I hated philosophy. |
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andy
Young Armadillo
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Post by andy on Jun 8, 2011 3:50:22 GMT -5
PANDAS. And horses. I think that scenario is possible. I think that when discussing the book, you'd have to acknowledge what the author intended in writing it, and admit that that is what the book is about generally, or that would be 'the blurb' of the book, as it were, but you wouldn't be wrong in saying "but actually, I read it to mean that elephants are really fucking rad and that's always what it's going to mean to me, whatever the author intended". That was garbled, but I hope you get what I mean. The problem is that although the author might say they intended to write a book about how elephants are horrible - can somebody honestly say that writing a book about how elephants are horrible has nothing to do with the cultural implications of the concept of 'elephant'? If the author is British, his elephant hatred could be seen as a sign of imperialism, if they're American, it could be Islamophobia add to that thousands and thousands of depictions of elephants in popular media (e.g., the ambiguously racist Dumbo, the Flying Elephant), etc. The author would obviously not admit that they were made to write a book about how elephants are horrible by the culture in which they live (although if they do, authorial intent is automatically invalidated) so how can we trust them when they say that they intended a book to have a certain meaning when they're obviously lying about why they wrote the book? Besides, it's a bit more complicated than just authorial intent. The whole concept of the author is questioned. Barthes's argument in The Death of the Author is that the author was never alive, but the concept of author is a modern bourgeois concept (because traditional story tellers never claim authorship of traditional stories) based on the notion of the superiority and specialness of the individual (that the Renaissance, rationalism and Reformation promoted). A consequence of this view is that to claim that interpretations based on what we think of as authorial intent are superior to other interpretations becomes ridiculous. Moreover, Barthes argues that because writers always write in languages, literary tradition, society, culture, etc. which are already there when they started writing all they do is bring together different texts and write them down - in much the same way that in the Middle Age scribes working on Bible editions or ancient epics did nothing more than bring together different texts and write them down (btw, T.S. Eliot agrees with this in Tradition and the Individual Talent). After you accept that there is no such thing as the Author-God, there's no longer any need to decipher a text looking for 'a secret message' from the Author-God, you can instead admit that the reader is the only one who invests a text with meaning because they're the only ones who can pierce together the different texts in a literary work. |
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Post by cyanea on Jun 8, 2011 11:34:19 GMT -5
I'm going to add my voice to the others saying "It's complicated..."
Authorial intent should be looked at when available, but not rated highly when analyzing a piece because authorial intent is vague, and sometimes muddied by history in the cases of books written before the modern age. I think slavishly sticking to the "Author-God" as a source of analysis in a piece is limiting and fruitless.
At the same time, knowing more about the context in which the author wrote the piece might help with some understanding.
As others have said...it's complicated.
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Post by Fuck Yeah Dion on Jun 8, 2011 17:20:38 GMT -5
PANDAS. And horses. I think that scenario is possible. I think that when discussing the book, you'd have to acknowledge what the author intended in writing it, and admit that that is what the book is about generally, or that would be 'the blurb' of the book, as it were, but you wouldn't be wrong in saying "but actually, I read it to mean that elephants are really fucking rad and that's always what it's going to mean to me, whatever the author intended". That was garbled, but I hope you get what I mean. The problem is that although the author might say they intended to write a book about how elephants are horrible - can somebody honestly say that writing a book about how elephants are horrible has nothing to do with the cultural implications of the concept of 'elephant'? If the author is British, his elephant hatred could be seen as a sign of imperialism, if they're American, it could be Islamophobia add to that thousands and thousands of depictions of elephants in popular media (e.g., the ambiguously racist Dumbo, the Flying Elephant), etc. The author would obviously not admit that they were made to write a book about how elephants are horrible by the culture in which they live (although if they do, authorial intent is automatically invalidated) so how can we trust them when they say that they intended a book to have a certain meaning when they're obviously lying about why they wrote the book? Besides, it's a bit more complicated than just authorial intent. The whole concept of the author is questioned. Barthes's argument in The Death of the Author is that the author was never alive, but the concept of author is a modern bourgeois concept (because traditional story tellers never claim authorship of traditional stories) based on the notion of the superiority and specialness of the individual (that the Renaissance, rationalism and Reformation promoted). A consequence of this view is that to claim that interpretations based on what we think of as authorial intent are superior to other interpretations becomes ridiculous. Moreover, Barthes argues that because writers always write in languages, literary tradition, society, culture, etc. which are already there when they started writing all they do is bring together different texts and write them down - in much the same way that in the Middle Age scribes working on Bible editions or ancient epics did nothing more than bring together different texts and write them down (btw, T.S. Eliot agrees with this in Tradition and the Individual Talent). After you accept that there is no such thing as the Author-God, there's no longer any need to decipher a text looking for 'a secret message' from the Author-God, you can instead admit that the reader is the only one who invests a text with meaning because they're the only ones who can pierce together the different texts in a literary work. This sounds like The Critical Tradition haha. |
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andy
Young Armadillo
Posts: 80
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Post by andy on Jun 9, 2011 9:34:31 GMT -5
The problem is that although the author might say they intended to write a book about how elephants are horrible - can somebody honestly say that writing a book about how elephants are horrible has nothing to do with the cultural implications of the concept of 'elephant'? If the author is British, his elephant hatred could be seen as a sign of imperialism, if they're American, it could be Islamophobia add to that thousands and thousands of depictions of elephants in popular media (e.g., the ambiguously racist Dumbo, the Flying Elephant), etc. The author would obviously not admit that they were made to write a book about how elephants are horrible by the culture in which they live (although if they do, authorial intent is automatically invalidated) so how can we trust them when they say that they intended a book to have a certain meaning when they're obviously lying about why they wrote the book? Besides, it's a bit more complicated than just authorial intent. The whole concept of the author is questioned. Barthes's argument in The Death of the Author is that the author was never alive, but the concept of author is a modern bourgeois concept (because traditional story tellers never claim authorship of traditional stories) based on the notion of the superiority and specialness of the individual (that the Renaissance, rationalism and Reformation promoted). A consequence of this view is that to claim that interpretations based on what we think of as authorial intent are superior to other interpretations becomes ridiculous. Moreover, Barthes argues that because writers always write in languages, literary tradition, society, culture, etc. which are already there when they started writing all they do is bring together different texts and write them down - in much the same way that in the Middle Age scribes working on Bible editions or ancient epics did nothing more than bring together different texts and write them down (btw, T.S. Eliot agrees with this in Tradition and the Individual Talent). After you accept that there is no such thing as the Author-God, there's no longer any need to decipher a text looking for 'a secret message' from the Author-God, you can instead admit that the reader is the only one who invests a text with meaning because they're the only ones who can pierce together the different texts in a literary work. This sounds like The Critical Tradition haha. Lol. XD I quite like Barthes, he's usually easy to read because his texts are free of jargon and relatively short and he's a very funny and pertinent critic of contemporary(ish) society. I'd recommend Mythologies to anybody who likes clever, politically engaged books and A Lover's Discourse to anybody who loves to read and has read Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther (for no other reason than the fact that Barthes's book makes numerous references to it). I think a lot of people only put him in the same box labeled 'unintelligible crazy French post/structuralists' because when he was alive he hanged out with Derrida, Foucault, etc. |
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Post by Fuck Yeah Dion on Jun 9, 2011 18:02:54 GMT -5
This sounds like The Critical Tradition haha. Lol. XD I quite like Barthes, he's usually easy to read because his texts are free of jargon and relatively short and he's a very funny and pertinent critic of contemporary(ish) society. I'd recommend Mythologies to anybody who likes clever, politically engaged books and A Lover's Discourse to anybody who loves to read and has read Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther (for no other reason than the fact that Barthes's book makes numerous references to it). I think a lot of people only put him in the same box labeled 'unintelligible crazy French post/structuralists' because when he was alive he hanged out with Derrida, Foucault, etc. I wish I could hang out with Barthes, Derrida, and Foucault one day. Just go get a beer with them or something. |
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