Comics are awesome.

[Shockwave]

Sparky the point we're all trying to make here is that the audience interpretation should start with the author's intent and should not contradict it. If someone's interpretation of a work of literature directly contradict's the author's intent, then they are wrong and kind of an arrogant and possibly ignorant jerk on top of that. I see nothing wrong with drawing ADDITIONAL meanings from something, so long as the original intent is acknowledged as the starting point and the ultimate purpose of the piece. Again, the best example I have of this is Narnia. If I read the Chronicles and finish it saying "Wow, that was an awesome adventure epic" and then claim that it had no religious overtones to it and then claimed that said overtones weren't the point anyway then I'm completely wrong. CS Lewis intended exactly that when he wrote it. Now, I get that that's what he was going for, but when I read it I don't see any evidence of it. To me, he failed epically in is intent. But if I want to be honest in my interpretation of his books, I have to at least acknowledge that such was his intent. For me to know that was his intent and say that it wasn't is dishonest and wrong and that's what we've been trying to say.

Shockwave
-Here comes the part where Dom says that it's all author intent and that even using that as a starting point is wrong.

[Gomess]

CS Lewis intended exactly that when he wrote it.

You raise an interesting point there. Tolkien claimed that LotR had NOTHING to do with his experiences of the war, and his own xenophobic tendencies, right up until his death. He's clearly wrong. Now, is that my incorrect interpretation? Or his *subconscious* intent? =p

Would be interesting to know if Lewis really INTENDED Narnia as a Christian allegory, or just wrote it that way 'cos that's all he knew.

[Onslaught Six]

Getting into subconcious intent and works becoming other things inadvertantly is an entirely other subject, I think. Hell, that even happened to me. I started writing a bunch of songs, putting them in an order, and then suddenly I saw there was an actual story there, if you bothered to look hard enough. But that's a different case, that's in the writing phase--I'm allowed to decide what statement I'm trying to make and then tailor my work to say that statement.

[Gomess]

But the audience isn't allowed to ignore your intent and make up their own mind...?

Makes the whole "creative" process a little perfunctory, if you ask me. Next time I'm gonna write a story, I'll just make it an essay instead. =3

[Dominic]

No it isn't. How is it just as bad if you're acknowledging author intent
as the primary intent. It isn't wrong to say "it COULD also mean this".

It comes down to, pun intended, what you intend by saying "it could also mean".

If you are saying, "I have reason to believe, based on my reading of this" that
a piece has an additional meaning, that is one thing. Perhaps you are merely assuming
that the author was lax in an interview, or otherwise neglected to mention something.
That would simply be reasonable speculation.

But, if you are saying, "I think it also means this, regardless of there being no reason
to think so, and possibly evidence from the author against this view, then that is wrong.

It's not a situation of the audience being wrong, it's a situation of the Beastie Boys not making a very good parody in the first place.

The audience is wrong because they are misreading the song. Even if you blame the Boys,
the audience is wrong because they are not understanding the meaning of the song. They
may have every reason to be wrong. But, their reading of the song is incorrect, and is
thus unambigously wrong. (Mind you, while I have never been much of a partier, I misread
the song as an anthem to partiers. My impression of the song, and everything I believed about
it was wrong.)

O6's link has another good example. I read F-451 years ago. (Not a fan of Bradbury for the
record.) I had no idea how much he was railing against TV, and simply went with the generally
agreed to, (and apparently incorrect), idea that Bradbury was writing about the FEds burning
books.

Now, I would not accuse somebody of being stupid for misreading F-451, as I cannot recall any
reason (beyond Bradbury's comments) to think that the book was about TV destroying reading.
But, the correct (if not terribly clear) reading of the book is not the common reading, (despite
what a reasonable person might think if they did not have Bradbury's comments available to them.)

They just find a meaning besides what the author intended.

It is a logical and factual impossibility to find something that is
NOT THERE TO BE FOUND. It is possible to mis-indentify something, or to be
otherwise mistaken. But, that is much different.

Unless I am very much mistaken about the facts, it would be impossible for me to run
afowl (pun intended) of the Cornish Owlman, even if I were to traval to England.

Why? Because Owlman does not (at least as far as I know) exist. Owlman not existing
makes it impossible to encounter him. However, it might be theoretically possible for
somebody to mistakenly think they saw Owlman, either because another person was actively trying
deceive them or because they were foolish. In this case, belief in Owlman would be factually wrong,
regardless of somebody's opinions on the matter.

Conversely, I could be way off base in my understanding of ornithology,
and the Owlman could be quite real. In this case, unlikely as it is, I would
be wrong in assuming no Owlman.

The same idea applies to author intent. The only thing in a story is what the author
intends to put in.

It, and other theories, are legitimately recognized in literary theory. You can't just dismiss it.
[/quote


English/Literature is one of the most fundamentally dishonest disciplines of all. I cannot
dismiss Deconstruction theory's existence. But, merely existing and having
adherents does not give it intellectual or epistemic credibility.

In other words, interpretation essentially leaves the audience with their own criteria, while criticism judges a work by the author's criteria. Or at least, that's how I'd define the two.

I would define (honest) interpretation as an attempt to parse out the author's intended meaning.

And if that's the case, why even bother with someone else's work in the first place?

A lack of creative ability and no capacity to come up with one's own stuff?

Who really "owns" the story when it's meant to be read and interpreted by an audience?

Usually, the person who wrote/bank-rolled the story. Even if something has no legal owner,
intellectual honesty demands that the author's intent, (as much as it can be divined), be
considered.

It's primarily the audience's job to try and understand what the author is trying to communicate,
not necessarily the other way around.

I would add one thing to this: It is generally the author's responsibility to make the effort
to make a story understandable, unless the author is marketing the story as being incomprehensible,
("Final Crisis" is an example of this.)

hy not? Even in high school English, with stories where it's clear
what the authors intent was, the teachers
will still always push for students to figure out what else it could mean.

Truth: Most English teachers are hucksters.

And, the most of the honest English teachers out there will not even teach students about
theory, meaning few people actually honestly discuss it as being dis-honest.

[Shockwave]

It comes down to, pun intended, what you intend by saying "it could also mean".

If you are saying, "I have reason to believe, based on my reading of this" that
a piece has an additional meaning, that is one thing. Perhaps you are merely assuming
that the author was lax in an interview, or otherwise neglected to mention something.
That would simply be reasonable speculation.

This is what I meant. Kind of like saying "Hey, I get what you mean but check this out, it also works like this. There's levels." Author: "Oh wow, dude I didn't even catch that. Awesome."

[Dominic]

Damn, I missed this whole last page of the thread....

Shockwave
-Here comes the part where Dom says that it's all author intent and that even using that as a starting point is wrong.

Your misreading of "Narnia" sounds like an honest mistake though. And, it is fair to assess how well an author did at deliving on their idea. (But, I still think that Lewis was reasonable in assuming his audience would have caught the references.

But the audience isn't allowed to ignore your intent and make up their own mind...?

Not if they are reading it honestly. The author's intended statement is what it is. If you want to call Tolkein a stinking liar, that is one thing. (It is very rude to question an author's honesty/integrity. But, I would be lying if I said I have never done so.)

The audience can read, (and one hopes understand), a story and its intent intelligently, and then assess the writer's skills. At a basic level, how well did they execute their idea? For example, I am 90% sure that "Countdown" was a large scale piece of performance art about bad comics that used comics as its delivery medium. I would bet money on this based on a close reading of the series. Now, (assuming of course I am right), I have to concede that "Countdown" did exactly what it was supposed to do, and did it *very* well. (The comic sucked. Mission accomplished there.)

The audience can then ask other questions. Is the premise really worth considering, either at all or at the level of attention the story gives it? Is the author actually writing intelligently about that premise? (For example, aside from the last 20 pages of later editions, Card's "Ender's Game" nicely illustrates the advantages of balancing empathy with ruthlessness. Card was, largely, on to something there. In the case of F-451, I would argue that Bradbury was unclear enough in his premise that it would be damned near impossible to say how much he understood it based on F-451.

[Dominic]

Forgot to type the above post in notepad first.....

This is what I meant. Kind of like saying "Hey, I get what you mean but check this out, it also works like this. There's levels." Author: "Oh wow, dude I didn't even catch that. Awesome."

If the author did not catch it, odds are it was not there in the first place. If I write something, I know what it is about. If somebody asks me, "where you writing about this, or thinking about this?", that is one thing. But, if I am answering honestly, I am not going to say I was writing about something that I was not actually thinking about.

If the reader continually insists that something is in my writing that I say is not in my writing, then they are either delusional, completely ego-centric, or they are calling me a liar. (On the other hand, they may well be able to honestly accuse me of being an inept writer, while being neither delusional, ego-centric or accusatory.)

[Shockwave]

That's not entirely what I mean either. I'm not talking about someone insisting that the writer's intentions are wrong, I'm talking about someone getting the original intent and finding additional meanings beyond that which the writer may not have even considered. Once brought to the writer's attention they then have two choices: "Wow that's awesome that my work has more levels in it than I had originally concieved." or "No. That additional meaning is not there. What I intended is the only meaning that should be gleaned from it." They can either accept the additional meaning or reject it. Now, if the audience continues to get the additional meaning from the story when the author rejects it, THEN they're wrong and dishonest and kind of douchy as well, but in the end everyone is still acknowledging the original intent.

[Dominic]

"Wow that's awesome that my work has more levels in it than I had originally concieved."

This is effectively impossible for an honest writer though. The work cannot have more levels than the writer intended or was aware of because the work only exists because the writer wrote it in the first place.

This gets back to my Owlman example. One cannot actually/honestly find what is not in fact there. If I am walking through the woods of Mawnan and am beset by a bird, I might (owing to the frailties of human perception) think that said bird was 5+ feet tall, weighed 100+ pounds and was possessed of roughly human intelligence.

If an ornithologist later approaches me and says, "Oh my. I am terribly sorry about this good sir. It seems that my eagle owl has learned how to pop the latch on his cage. This is quite the bollywog for me", then we have established that I was in fact attacked by an eagle owl. (This would actually be pretty terrible, as eagle owls are huge friggin' birds.)

I cannot legitimately claim that the ornithologist's eagle owl was in fact the legendary crypto-bird. If I do make such a claim, (which I might if sufficiently walloxed with pain killers), the ornithologist would still not be able to say, "Why kind sir, you are rather verisant in your observations. That is in fact a mysterious crypto-bird. I never knew that until this enguestful conversation." He would be admitting a false-hood based on a statement that he should clearly recognize as false. The fact I would be doped up would not make my statement less wrong, (as much as it would give me a viable excuse). Mistakenly observing something does not make it real.

Dom
-totally made up a word or two in that post.