To me it's one of those case by case things. Mainly I only want to bring Death of the Author into play if what the author says doesn't match up with what the story shows.
Death of the Author
- Thread starter Fox12
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I'm reminded of MovieBob's two-parter about Sucker Punch, where he said that you shouldn't write it off as a pandering male-nerd power fantasy when it was actually trying to be the exact opposite. Several comments (through Facebook or the forums) suggested that they believe it failed to present its message well, so his argument is moot.
I do think it's important for people to understand what a work is trying to say (if anything) before criticizing it too harshly.
I do think it's important for people to understand what a work is trying to say (if anything) before criticizing it too harshly.
Does it really matter what a work means to the audience after an author has written it? I stand by the theory that all of human communication is based on a misunderstanding. I say something, the listener takes my mouth-words and translates it into their own temperament and frame of reference and assigns their own meaning to it. If both parties think the other person understands, it's all gravy, it's only a problem when both parties realize the other doesn't understand.
Plus, the work is already done. What's the author to do? Revise it to try to make their own original point clear? Lucas pissed off 3 generations of people trying to make his work conform to his original vision. Friendster was brought down when the founder went to war with his users over how to "properly" use it.
Plus, the work is already done. What's the author to do? Revise it to try to make their own original point clear? Lucas pissed off 3 generations of people trying to make his work conform to his original vision. Friendster was brought down when the founder went to war with his users over how to "properly" use it.
people can intperet things differently...in fact people SHOULD, hell Starship Troopers was turned into a satire (the direct opposite) of the original authors intent and that was greatFox12 said:
it can be fun to view things in a different way even though you know its not the authors intention, and acting like its this big affront to the authors very being is...yeah just a touch pretentious
if I were an Author the only issue I'd have is if people mistakenly thought I held certain views that I didn't (ie: the author of fight club probably doesn't approve of MRA's appropriating his book, Paul Verhoven DOESN'T think facism is the coolest ever) aside from assumptions about you personally (and clearing them up) there's not a whole lot you can do about people reading your work different
also on a slightly different tangent
if something in a work is thought of as offensive, the fact that the author says it wasn't indented that way is mostly irrelevant,
a mild example would be interstellar (I didn't find it as sexist as some people did) but quite a few brought up issues with the character "murph" the leads daughter who is a brilliant scientist but also plagued by "daddy" issues, I'm sure whoever wrote that (Nolan?) thought they had this great strong female character and she has some positives but she ALSO falls back on a lot of stereotypical tropes, I think its important to acknowledge thease things as the author ESPECIALLY if your writing characters outside your personal experiences
First off, let's be clear that the issue of how we should go about interpreting a work should *not* be thought of in terms of a dilemma between two options: 1) The author's intent - if s/he even has a well-defined, easily expressible one - is final, or 2) All interpretations are equally valid in the sense of being unassailable.
Instead, it ultimately comes down to a question of: "What *should* this work be taken to mean?"
In asking this question, we are not ultimately asking whether factors like 'historical context' should be taken into account. Ultimately, 'history' here is a value-laden narrative someone has composed and we must recognize that we are already doing violence to a work by situating it in a 'historical context'. Discussing such factors doesn't necessarily get us any closer to discovering an author's 'original intent', in any case. Nor would it ultimately make much difference if we did know the original intent.
When you ask the above question, you are asking what should be learned from the work - what does it teach us about who we are and how we should go about living (by 'we' I mean the royal we of humanity, but also each of us as persons).
Some lessons will be more coherent, more relevant, more fundamentally important than others. If the author's own interpretation is found inadequate against such criteria, especially if a more enlightening/inspiring interpretation surfaces - the former ought to be ignored. Meanwhile, the dialogue regarding what the most important lesson(s) this work has to teach us may continue amongst readers.
So, it is not that the author's intent is the 'right' interpretation, or that everyone's interpretations can't help but all be 'right'. The 'right' interpretation is instead a product of what essentially becomes a philosophical dialogue; it can only emerge because we do not begin with any decisive, unassailable fact of the matter about what a work should be taken to mean.
Instead, it ultimately comes down to a question of: "What *should* this work be taken to mean?"
In asking this question, we are not ultimately asking whether factors like 'historical context' should be taken into account. Ultimately, 'history' here is a value-laden narrative someone has composed and we must recognize that we are already doing violence to a work by situating it in a 'historical context'. Discussing such factors doesn't necessarily get us any closer to discovering an author's 'original intent', in any case. Nor would it ultimately make much difference if we did know the original intent.
When you ask the above question, you are asking what should be learned from the work - what does it teach us about who we are and how we should go about living (by 'we' I mean the royal we of humanity, but also each of us as persons).
Some lessons will be more coherent, more relevant, more fundamentally important than others. If the author's own interpretation is found inadequate against such criteria, especially if a more enlightening/inspiring interpretation surfaces - the former ought to be ignored. Meanwhile, the dialogue regarding what the most important lesson(s) this work has to teach us may continue amongst readers.
So, it is not that the author's intent is the 'right' interpretation, or that everyone's interpretations can't help but all be 'right'. The 'right' interpretation is instead a product of what essentially becomes a philosophical dialogue; it can only emerge because we do not begin with any decisive, unassailable fact of the matter about what a work should be taken to mean.
This seems like an odd question to me. Isn't only deriving the one specific meaning the author mentions from a work killing the very concept of interpretation? Granted, not all works are meant to have one specific message or meaning. An example: one might see Romeo & Juliet as a great love story about love conquering all, and two people choosing to be together, even if it means death. Another person might see it as a cautionary tale about prejudice and fanatical devotion.
I think you might want to rephrase that question. How do critics, people who are only allowed to see a finished work, have any control over an author's creative process? They're not editors. If you mean that should we only believe what the author says his/her work is about, rather than listen to critics' interpretations as well, then I can understand. An author should have complete creative control over their work, but everyone is allowed to interpret it the way they want.Fox12 said:
Hmm, of couse an author can have a very specific messsage in mind while writing a story. Nonetheless every reader might interpret the story differently, as every reader has a slightly different social background, knowledge, upbringing etc. Reading something into a story that the author did not intend does not make the interpretation wrong.
I had this whole spiel about all the reasons why I dislike the concept behind "Death of the author" however I haven't actually read it so it would be somewhat hypocritical.
But this is the internet, so I must give my opinion even if it's neither wanted nor needed.
At it's core it just comes off as the opposite extreme, and extreme positions are rarely good.
It just seems as though it's a way for people to delude themselves into thinking their interpretation is objectively right. In reality an interpretation is no more right or wrong than the authors intent, it's all subjective.
edit: It also comes off as selfish and disrespectful to completely disregard what the author was trying to do. If someone isn't willing to try and understand where the author was coming from why should anyone else afford them the same courtesy.
But this is the internet, so I must give my opinion even if it's neither wanted nor needed.
At it's core it just comes off as the opposite extreme, and extreme positions are rarely good.
It just seems as though it's a way for people to delude themselves into thinking their interpretation is objectively right. In reality an interpretation is no more right or wrong than the authors intent, it's all subjective.
edit: It also comes off as selfish and disrespectful to completely disregard what the author was trying to do. If someone isn't willing to try and understand where the author was coming from why should anyone else afford them the same courtesy.
As a writer, I don't think I have total control over my writing to begin with. The characters are their own people, who act their own way. Everything is shaped by the events and setting in ways I can't fully predict until I'm buried in the guts of the story. I also love when something or someone on the page breaks my carefully laid out timeline because I now get a whole new path to go down which never occurred to me before. If I enjoy my own writing as a ride, how can I deny critics and readers the same experience? I'll consider myself a success if they get as much enjoyment or thought provoking out of reading it as I did writing it.
On the other hand, I have had to restrain a story going in the completely opposite direction I had envisioned it. I wanted the main character to die tragically through his own faults, despite having near God like powers. But I also surrounded him with intelligent, supportive characters who seemed to heal him as fast as I could break him.
So, I guess my opinion on the matter is that critics may as well not exist. There is the author and the reader. Each will get something different out of the work but it should never be purposely limited by the other.
On the other hand, I have had to restrain a story going in the completely opposite direction I had envisioned it. I wanted the main character to die tragically through his own faults, despite having near God like powers. But I also surrounded him with intelligent, supportive characters who seemed to heal him as fast as I could break him.
So, I guess my opinion on the matter is that critics may as well not exist. There is the author and the reader. Each will get something different out of the work but it should never be purposely limited by the other.
Its interesting because one of my favourite authors right now is a smalltime indie guy who I can literally go ask a question anytime I want on his facebook page and he always answers. Its helped me gain a lot of perspective on his stories. I remember even asking him if one of his characters was supposed to be autistic! Ive always considered the original creators opinion on something dogma.
As I understand it, she may not have intentionally written him as such, she was going for the tortured emo male romantic lead thing, and ended up with him thinking about how he's going to rip Bella to shreds, and planning the best way to snap the necks of all the witnesses.Haerthan said:
I don't think he was ever supposed to be the bad guy in that, Bella is so tasty he doesn't think he can stop himself.
Hate the concept, it's postmodernist crap at it's worst.
One can have a different take than the author, but it doesn't mean it's the correct one. Unless the work is meant to be open to intermediation the author is the deity of their creation and trying to destroy that concept is disgusting to me.
A work that aims to be unambiguous and produces many different different views or only widely different one from the author's just shows that the work was poorly put together either from thematic point of view or a grammatical one, one which Twilight, what people have mentioned in this thread, fails at massively.
Meyer is just a poor writer and Twilight is just a terrible book series. End of story.
One can have a different take than the author, but it doesn't mean it's the correct one. Unless the work is meant to be open to intermediation the author is the deity of their creation and trying to destroy that concept is disgusting to me.
A work that aims to be unambiguous and produces many different different views or only widely different one from the author's just shows that the work was poorly put together either from thematic point of view or a grammatical one, one which Twilight, what people have mentioned in this thread, fails at massively.
Meyer is just a poor writer and Twilight is just a terrible book series. End of story.
I can't speak for lit crit, but this line of thinking ain't going to help you if you want to be a historian. Context of production is vital in source analysis. This is true even for historiographical criticism. Pretending the author doesn't exist or isn't important won't make him go away. You'd be just supressing valuable evidence.
Of course, you should also be wary of going the other way around and analysing a work based solely on its context of production. Like many historians and self-proclaimed "cultural commentators" are fond of doing. A work has social impact insofar as it is read, and people are very capable of reading against the grain. Not to mention that some works travel so far temporally and spatially that the original intent is all but lost.
As for whether or not the author's statement on his work is reliable, well, it isn't. An author's statement is not what the book is, but how the writer wants it to be read. It's interesting that if you compare authors' views on their work at different stages of their lives you'll sometimes notice that they change their minds.
That said, knowing that a given writer wants his work to be a read in a certain fashion is, in itself, crucial information for an in-depth analysis.
Of course, you should also be wary of going the other way around and analysing a work based solely on its context of production. Like many historians and self-proclaimed "cultural commentators" are fond of doing. A work has social impact insofar as it is read, and people are very capable of reading against the grain. Not to mention that some works travel so far temporally and spatially that the original intent is all but lost.
As for whether or not the author's statement on his work is reliable, well, it isn't. An author's statement is not what the book is, but how the writer wants it to be read. It's interesting that if you compare authors' views on their work at different stages of their lives you'll sometimes notice that they change their minds.
That said, knowing that a given writer wants his work to be a read in a certain fashion is, in itself, crucial information for an in-depth analysis.
I've always had a bone to pick with such post-modernism, but the more I studied philosophy the more I realized the inevitability of it. At least partially. I still don't like the feeling of it; a book is a person's thoughts solidified. What that person felt and thought made public. And the idea that the author loses all control of his thoughts and feelings when they're made public feels both disrespectful and possibly dangerous.
Nietzsche, for instance, was completely hijacked by the Nazis thanks to his sister. Thus when I see someone say "Nietzsche's work totally supported Nazi ideals!" I read "Nietzsche thought and felt like a Nazi." But that's not what he felt at all, yet he's transformed into it by 'the masses' as it were. And that, to me, sounds very unfair and very disrespectful towards him.
He, of course, is just a rather extreme example of a broader point I'm trying to make. The point being that I think it's rather unfair and disrespectful to basically tell the author what he thought by ignoring him in your literary analysis.
However, that said, I do realize the inevitability of the public arena being influenced by someone's work. And the influence that someone's work ends up having is not something that's always in the author's control. And that influence is also important in the analysis of a literary work, it's all part of the context in which it resides. However, the author should not be forgotten or ignored. He's still a person you know, a person deserving of basic respects.
So yeah a middle ground seems like the best course of action to me. Actually, that interplay between what the writer meant with his work and what it ended up meaning for all kinds of social groups provides you with very interesting information about cultural and social situations within a certain society.
This poster also put at least part of what I wanted to say quite well:
That, and as another user pointed out; there's more than just the literary critical context, there's the historical context as well which matters just as much for the analysis of any work.
But you can't just sweep aside the context of the writer either, it's a very important part of the context of how it came to be. That driven-through post-modernist way of thinking especially becomes problematic when you need to act upon a certain work. If one group says of it that it is offensive, and the other group does not, who gets to decide who's right? There's no logical (in the literal sense) reason why the group who takes offense is right, it's no logical necessity.
So how do you decide which point of view to act upon? In deciding such matters the intent of the author is an important part of the context on which you decide your plan of action. "Offense", after all, is not an absolute thing, it's extremely relative.
Nietzsche, for instance, was completely hijacked by the Nazis thanks to his sister. Thus when I see someone say "Nietzsche's work totally supported Nazi ideals!" I read "Nietzsche thought and felt like a Nazi." But that's not what he felt at all, yet he's transformed into it by 'the masses' as it were. And that, to me, sounds very unfair and very disrespectful towards him.
He, of course, is just a rather extreme example of a broader point I'm trying to make. The point being that I think it's rather unfair and disrespectful to basically tell the author what he thought by ignoring him in your literary analysis.
However, that said, I do realize the inevitability of the public arena being influenced by someone's work. And the influence that someone's work ends up having is not something that's always in the author's control. And that influence is also important in the analysis of a literary work, it's all part of the context in which it resides. However, the author should not be forgotten or ignored. He's still a person you know, a person deserving of basic respects.
So yeah a middle ground seems like the best course of action to me. Actually, that interplay between what the writer meant with his work and what it ended up meaning for all kinds of social groups provides you with very interesting information about cultural and social situations within a certain society.
This poster also put at least part of what I wanted to say quite well:
voleary said:
Whether you're a good or bad writer has little to do with it. There's all kinds of contextual things at play that could lead a work to be received very differently than the author intended.Queen Michael said:
That, and as another user pointed out; there's more than just the literary critical context, there's the historical context as well which matters just as much for the analysis of any work.
I quite disagree with this, to a degree I do think intent should not simply be ignored. Yes, it is also important to point out any interpretations from different perspectives that might look points made by the writer differently. And pointing those out and talking about them matters for the public debate, to solve problems.Vault101 said:
But you can't just sweep aside the context of the writer either, it's a very important part of the context of how it came to be. That driven-through post-modernist way of thinking especially becomes problematic when you need to act upon a certain work. If one group says of it that it is offensive, and the other group does not, who gets to decide who's right? There's no logical (in the literal sense) reason why the group who takes offense is right, it's no logical necessity.
So how do you decide which point of view to act upon? In deciding such matters the intent of the author is an important part of the context on which you decide your plan of action. "Offense", after all, is not an absolute thing, it's extremely relative.
I don't fully understand this. It sounds a little...silly to say that they are 'their own people' for are they not your imaginations? How are they not completely in your control? You could just type "And then he had a sudden stroke and died." and that's that.squeezal said:
I feel that it depends. If the work was an auteur piece, then yes, that person's intentions for the piece should be acknowledged. However, when it's a work made by multiple people, then the interpretations you draw are as valid as those of the team.
What squeezal is saying (I believe but cannot speak for authorial intent which I think ties in nicely to the threadCowabungaa said:
) is that a story and its characters begin with a certain path in mind but as a writer writes different thing suggest themselves and so the characters and the plot morph according to these new ideas. Perhaps the original ending doesn't match the characters that have emerged in the writing process and therefore the story changes.True you can always do whatever the hell you like in a piece of art but unless it follows some sort of internal logic it will result in a conflicting mess which will often cause your readers to give up and lose interest. In a way the characters and the story so far define what comes after so they do have a sort of pseudo-life. In fact I would argue in many ways that the only time an author is in complete control of their work is right at the beginning, before the story is well formed enough to start making demands of its own.
As you say, as a writer writes different things the story and so his mind changes. But I don't see how that means that the writer isn't in control; it's the writer who influences his own thoughts and creations by reflecting upon them. How can a story make demands of its own? After all, a story is thoughts made flesh. A physical manifestation of what the writer thinks trapped in a moment. It's obvious that that moment in time influences how a writer progresses, but how does that make him less in control? It's his own thoughts influencing himself.Korenith said:
I think what's so interesting about a piece of writing is that it never does stand by itself. It is always read (or told, or presented) in a context, and the context changes what one takes away from it.
I can read a book knowing nothing about an author and be affected by it. Then, after finding out about what the author meant for it to be about, I sometimes get a new perspective from it. Just as getting new life experiences sometimes makes me view a work of fiction differently, as does hearing about somebody else's perspective. Sometimes it becomes richer and better, sometimes just different. The important thing is that the story in one context doesn't have to overtake the other, they can be appreciated independently of each other.
I find that song lyrics are the most clear example of how this works for me. I can hear a song and instantly relate it to that one thing I just went through, me and my experiences gave it a certain context and a certain meaning. Then upon finding out what the song was really meant to be about, I suddenly hear two different songs about two different things, neither of which are valid or invalid.
I don't know if any of that makes sense. What I'm trying to say is that the author's original intention still matters, but it's not the only thing that matters. Taking his/her intentions into account when reading something is a valid approach, but so is not doing it, and in some ways, the most interesting approach is to do both.
I can read a book knowing nothing about an author and be affected by it. Then, after finding out about what the author meant for it to be about, I sometimes get a new perspective from it. Just as getting new life experiences sometimes makes me view a work of fiction differently, as does hearing about somebody else's perspective. Sometimes it becomes richer and better, sometimes just different. The important thing is that the story in one context doesn't have to overtake the other, they can be appreciated independently of each other.
I find that song lyrics are the most clear example of how this works for me. I can hear a song and instantly relate it to that one thing I just went through, me and my experiences gave it a certain context and a certain meaning. Then upon finding out what the song was really meant to be about, I suddenly hear two different songs about two different things, neither of which are valid or invalid.
I don't know if any of that makes sense. What I'm trying to say is that the author's original intention still matters, but it's not the only thing that matters. Taking his/her intentions into account when reading something is a valid approach, but so is not doing it, and in some ways, the most interesting approach is to do both.
Yeah, I don't have a link for it. If I recall correctly it was on the Satire Knight website, where she does a scene by scene breakdown and riff of the terrible writing in those books. I vaguely recall her making a side comment when she got to the part where the doctor vamp was talking to Bella about Edward, and made that "beautiful soul" comment. She then pointed to the aborted book from Edward's viewpoint, and illustrated how all of his internal thoughts were violent and angry and stuff. She was pointing this discrepency out to illustrate the "show don't tell" aspect of writing. In that Meyers kept trying to tell us that Bella was a wonderful person, but showed us the actions of a manipulative, deceptive sociopath.thaluikhain said:
It could be totally wrong, this assessment of the Edward Book, as I've never read any of them (except to laugh at Satire Knight eviscerate them), and never plan on it.