It does make sense: I'm a bit too tired to develop my ideas/agreement right now, but I did want to clarify the meaning of a term I use, one that's tossed around a lot, and means different things.
I teach the fallacy of authorial intention: by that, I don't mean that authors don't have intentions (many, conscious and un-), but that a statement of an author's intent (in a letter, diary, published or unpublished essay, at a reading) is not sufficient evidence to base a claim of a correct/privileged reading on in an academic essay. (Of course as I've said elsewhere tonight, AW was not writing an academic essay!)
So it's great to read published letters of authors who are dead (remembering that the publications are never complete) or talk to writers who are alive and read interviews--but saying "the author says X and that's the only correct thing to say about the book" (which I saw some of Bear's friends doing--and she herself did not do that--she understood she had failed a reader--no book is perfect nor is there a single book I know of or any other text that everybody responds to the same way) is just wrong. (So is saying that there are books that are better than their readers! I just could not believe that!).
Getting even more improper: it's perfectly valid academic work to do a resistant reading of a text these days: I have an essay on Éowyn in which I argue that Tolkien's intent was NOT feminist in any way, citing several pieces of textual evidence (his various revisions of her story--in one version, she was going to die for being a "strong Amazon,"--his letter expressing his dislike of American feminism--the scene in which all the men stand around her unconsciouis form and decide exactly what she felt and thought and what was wrong with her--unhappiness with her life not just the black breah--and his marrying her off to Faramir--because all women want to get married). So I think I can argue fairly well Tolkien did not intend this character as a feminist role model.
However that did not stop me, nor women I know, from taking her as just that (and in my case, as a object of queer adoration and crossdressing)!
The author's intent does not trump the reader's interpretation: Tolkien cannot take my reading of this character away. Um, sorry, this topic is one of my hobbyhorses!
And really, if all one has is the published text, there's no valid way to "judge" authorial intent (you can make some guesses based on the text, but still, it's dicey). As I keep telling my students: we have SOME chance at analyzing a text. We have NO chance whatsoever of analyzing the author!
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branchandroot
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Date: 2009-01-21 04:25 am (UTC)I teach the fallacy of authorial intention: by that, I don't mean that authors don't have intentions (many, conscious and un-), but that a statement of an author's intent (in a letter, diary, published or unpublished essay, at a reading) is not sufficient evidence to base a claim of a correct/privileged reading on in an academic essay. (Of course as I've said elsewhere tonight, AW was not writing an academic essay!)
So it's great to read published letters of authors who are dead (remembering that the publications are never complete) or talk to writers who are alive and read interviews--but saying "the author says X and that's the only correct thing to say about the book" (which I saw some of Bear's friends doing--and she herself did not do that--she understood she had failed a reader--no book is perfect nor is there a single book I know of or any other text that everybody responds to the same way) is just wrong. (So is saying that there are books that are better than their readers! I just could not believe that!).
Getting even more improper: it's perfectly valid academic work to do a resistant reading of a text these days: I have an essay on Éowyn in which I argue that Tolkien's intent was NOT feminist in any way, citing several pieces of textual evidence (his various revisions of her story--in one version, she was going to die for being a "strong Amazon,"--his letter expressing his dislike of American feminism--the scene in which all the men stand around her unconsciouis form and decide exactly what she felt and thought and what was wrong with her--unhappiness with her life not just the black breah--and his marrying her off to Faramir--because all women want to get married). So I think I can argue fairly well Tolkien did not intend this character as a feminist role model.
However that did not stop me, nor women I know, from taking her as just that (and in my case, as a object of queer adoration and crossdressing)!
The author's intent does not trump the reader's interpretation: Tolkien cannot take my reading of this character away. Um, sorry, this topic is one of my hobbyhorses!
And really, if all one has is the published text, there's no valid way to "judge" authorial intent (you can make some guesses based on the text, but still, it's dicey). As I keep telling my students: we have SOME chance at analyzing a text. We have NO chance whatsoever of analyzing the author!