How does /lit/ defend itself against the "blue curtains"

put up red curtains

I don't know what the 'blue curtains' argument is. Are you talking about how teachers interpret books not originally intended by the authors to generate more meaningful discussion?

Essentially, "the curtains were blue" works if the author typically doesn't say thing's colours, but if he paints everything it's just some word.
Also avoid the word "represents" in interpretation at all costs.

>>9264003
Maybe this is true if your reading a hack writter. A good writter would have a reason for having the curtains being blue or else they wouldn't even mention the fact that they're blue.

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>>9264003
what if i told you that everything in REAL LIFE has significance and your surroundings subtly shape your REAL LIFE emotional and spiritual identity

not everything is a metaphor but everything is important

>>9264012
It's the idea that literature snobs and people studying/teaching English look too deeply into books trying to find meaning and complexities where none of that was intended.

How can anyone have immediate access to the author's intention?

>>9264003

what argument is to be made?

people can believe whatever they want

>>9264003
The only valid interpretation of any text is one which accounts for the author's intended meaning whatever it may be. For example, suppose that a word is misspelled on one page of the book and you know what the word is supposed to be because it is unambiguous, only a highs school English teacher would be crazy enough to say that the misspelling had some thing to do with the theme of the book. Anything outside of this criteria of intentional meaning is conjecture and should be labeled as such.

>>9264003
Attack them personally. It's very relevant.

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>>9264113
T H E A U T H O R I S D E A D
H
E

A
U
T
H
O
R

I
S

D
E
A
D

>>9264003
What the author meant doesn't matter. Authorial intent is slightly less retarded than critical theory. Readers response will reign supreme in the interpretation of literature in perpetuity.

>>9264055
If you can draw an interpretation of a book that gives you a meaningful or different perspective on something, then original intent doesn't matter

>>9264126
Even though Plato has been dead for a long time we still attempt to interpret what he wrote such that we come close to what he meant. So, the author does not have to be alive to make a charitable interpretation of what he/she wrote.

What benefit would an interpretation of some text be if it was divergent from the authors original intended meaning? Don't we call these divergent interpretations conspiracy theories?

>>9264055
You can do that with anything and logic will dictate whether something is mindlessly deep or truly deep.

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>>9264293
please google "the death of the author"

why would a well-studied and cogent interpretation of a block of text be any less important than that of the author of the block of text?

>>9264266
>you can draw an interpretation of a book that gives you a meaningful or different perspective on something
Sure you can, but you can't say that is what the author meant to say, can you?

My original post was about validity not about the efficacy of making readers' feelies come to some good feely state.

>>9264293
You missed the point buddy.

>>9264293
I don't think we do, because nobody is conspiring.
Academia varies greatly on how it interprets certain aspects of Plato, or any author really. one aim is certainly to explicate the original meaning, so that we may treat it, but to come to other conclusions is not without purpose: indeed, some works intend for a personal interpretation, especially those that treat the reader actively, like kierkegaard does. Even in instances where the interpretation is entirely your own, if you can back it up with text it is a starting point of discussion. Finally, even those cases that are neither intended nor start discussion are valuable, for they enrich your thinking: you literally get smarter by thinking, busboy.

>>9264003
This argument isn't one.
It's just a strawman supposed to represent analysis of literature as an art form because some people can't make the effort of seeing books as more than a way to tell a story.

But as others pointed out, the author's intention are overated.

Because since structuralism and the German hermeneutic school its not important anymore 'what the writer meant' but what the text can mean for the interpretator.

There are no facts, only interpretations.

>>9264304
Because the block of text is complete and the information on the author is hopelessly incomplete, the block of text is the expressed intentions of the author and it is ultimately the author's responsibility to generate meaning which is self-contained in that block of text.

There is a distinction to be made between the meaning as related to the block of text itself and the meaning as related to why the author wrote the block of text and what the author intended to do with the block of text.

I can tell you right now that you do not believe that these two meanings are identical because you are at this moment trying to interpret the meaning of my post and not the meaning of the confluence of events which determined my making this post.

A psychoanalysis of the author is not necessary for an interpretation of his or her work. Just like the ultimate purpose of some machine is not necessary in understanding how the machine works.

>>9264369
Are you going to tell me that it is not a fact that you exist?

It ignores a hundred years of literary theory, and is used by idiots as an excuse to not pay attention in high school.

>>9264308
But who cares what the author meant to say, at the end of it all?

>>9264411
Why are you reading the book then?
Why do you care about what my post means, bro.

>>9264236
>>9264126
>>9264326
>>9264349
>>9264321
>>9264304

Where is all of this arcane literary interpretation of my own posts in this thread? Why is the anon, who is supposedly a proponent for literary interpretation, interpreting my posts as blocks of text as intended by its author?

The reason why you choose not to do it here is because any post about mine which does not account for the intended meaning of my posts would be irrelevant to the conversation, and it would make you look like an idiot for trying, to put it in a phrase, put words in my mouth.

>>9264378
And yet if you googled and read Barthes' paper as the tripfag asked you to, you would understand that there is an infinite universe of valid interpretations of a given text, and that our job is not to find the one and only real meaning of the work, but to understand it constructively.

>>9264003
The English teachers argument is a bad one. There is generally a kind of internal logic to the text so the curtains wouldn't be blue to represent the character's depression if the character hadn't faced a key contributory moment to his depression yet in the text. Nor, I doubt, would the experience of seeing blue curtains contribute to a depressive state of mind. The 'curtains were blue' argument doesn't represent most literary theory (and perhaps what the teacher claimed the author meant was misinterpreted by the student who made this image), but nonetheless this poor level of inquiry represents what most people think of art analysis and criticism, which in turn forms the opinion that anyone can be an artist if their statements are nonsense word salad about things representing other things ("the period blood on the canvas represents oppression faced by women"). Symbolism is only prevalent in things like film and other pleb fodder with no sophisticated theory behind its production, and it is an egregious misstep to think that commercial art such as film and TV have as parallel a depth of theory as literature and visual art.

>>9264499
In what sense do you mean the word "valid?"

Sure there are many different interpretations of some text, however there is only one interpretation which gives a complete account for what that author meant.

I feel the need to repeat myself. The only valid interpretation of some text is about what the meaning is and not what the meaning may be, because if I asked the question, "what did the author mean?" There is only one answer.

Barthe can say that the job of the readers is to interpret the meaning of the text in a constructive way, but that is a non-answer to the question, "what did the author mean by writing this?" To say that all of these constructive interpretations is what the author meant is absurd.

>he hasn't heard that the author has been dead for years now

lmao

>>9264557
>there is only one interpretation which gives a complete account for what that author meant.

Since the author cannot dominate the structures of language, the author has no real control over what ends up in the text, and thus no real control over its interpretation by others. Considering what the author meant is a means, not and end. If the author contradicts himself or is inconsistent, or relies on things left unsaid (i.e. that occur specifically in the general time that forms the social context of the author's access to language) to generate meaning, then there are gaps in the evidence and thus the access to what the author meant. It is indeterminable and we can at best guess his intentions, and indeed take the evidence into account, but not really know. The text is evidence of intention and we can only work with that evidence.

>>9264557
We can't possibly know what the author meant. And in any case, the authors' interpretation of their work is just one of many. Authors write things that have meaning which they themselves did not intend. The reader's job is not to decipher the authors' intention, which is inscrutable, but as this anon said >>9264499, to understand the work constructively. To assume there is only one "valid" (valid to whom? In what context?) interpretation or reading of a work, and that that validity relies solely on the abstraction that is "the author", is to strangle the work of art. Sure, you can ask "what did he mean by this?", but the only answer would be "we don't know, we can't know". Which doesn't imply an understanding of the work is impossible, far from it. But it does imply that such understanding does not rely on what the author has to say.

what's a good intro to literary theory?

>>9264046
This is absurd. Good writers must interject meaning into EVERY single word? You're fucking ignorant.

>>9264602
You "Author is dead" fags make out that deciphering what the author meant and mainly sticking to that goal, is some sort of impossible labor.
The story or work you're reading is from the author's own world, their imagination, which you would surely not wish to dictate. Is that not a high point of appeal for fiction? Being absorbed by another world and story made by someone else, a world which you can't control or distort? To interpret things in your own way irrespective of the author is to deny the intended experience they're trying to offer. Why should we all conform to that way of viewing literature?

>>9264728
Why are you so obsessed with the author instead of the actual text? The qualities you just described are the text's, not the author's.

Deciphering what was in Shakespeare's head when he wrote a sonnet is impossible mainly, though you might not notice it, because we are not Shakespeare. But he do have the text. If the author had an intention, it is in the text, not the author him or herself.

Yeah, sure, you may stick to that goal, you are entitled to do whatever the fuck you want. Good luck trying to "decipher" a text in order to arrive at a single unifying meaning that comes from the author's head.

>>9264756
We do have***

>>9264081
yes but at what point do misinterpretation and mischaracterization become offensive to the author?

>>9264725
>Good writers must interject meaning into EVERY single word?
Yes, and the best do it on a syllable by syllable basis

>>9264725
Not every single world, but why would you specify the color of the curtains if it weren't relevant to the scene you are describing? That's bad writing.

Authorial intent is shallow grounds for interpreting a work, it's usually tied in with biographical information in some way to give an authoritative reading of a text. Understanding that a work of art or literature has a life of its own outside of the intentions of the author is vital to a critical reading of basically anything.

>>9264779
Maybe it matters. Maybe for no reason. This isn't some Da Vinci Code unlock the mystery treasure, where someone has left you a secret treasure map to decode in each atom of writing.

>>9264756
The text should reflect what the author meant or intended, yes.
I'm not talking about their exact thoughts or feelings, I'm talking specifically about the world and story which they wish to create and convey.
For example, in the instance that the author, externally to his or her work, makes a claim about said work which would seem to contradict a reader's interpretation, the author's claim is valid, not the reader's interpretation. Maybe the text LITERALLY supplements that reader's interpretation more than the author's claims but, those of us who are reasonable should listen to the author. It's their world and their story, not the reader's.

>>9264003
The author can't control your perception.

>>9264113
Truly embarrassing.

All these pseuds don't use the glossary when reading Shakespeare and instead construe words to hold idiosyncratic meanings. This is a sign of autism.

>>9264850
>he thinks the author has a say once the thing is published
>laughing_whores.png

>>9264728
Acknowledging the death of the author is a step in developing a constructive, critical approach, rather than a casual reading of fiction for enjoyment or immersion. It's supposed to open a reading up rather than confine it. You seem to think that the reader's interpretation is where people just make up their own rules because fuck it, the author is fucking dead who gives a shit. That's not what the theory is about; it's that language is complex, far more complex than what anyone had thought up until postmodernism, and meanings extend beyond what is intentioned. It's a similar principle to reading a translation rather than a text in its original language. It's not to say that author's intention shouldn't be taken into account, it's just that it's impossible to know through the text what the author's true intention was, and in the end it only supplements a reading rather than defines it. DoA isn't as extreme as the modernist interpretations of texts (New Criticism) in which the intent literally didn't matter at all, just the form of words on the page.

>>9264850
>Hey guys, I'm Herman Melville, and, uh, this book I wrote, it's called Moby Dick, well, it's actually about cats! Crazy thing, right? What? You say it's about man's struggle against the infinite? Don't be ridiculous! It's clearly about cats. Yep, definitely.

>>9264680
http://oyc.yale.edu/english/engl-300

>>9264728
It is, at best, guesswork.
Why would you pursue something so banal, when you could literally choose to view a text in the best possible version of itself?

>>9264850
>those of us who are reasonable
>unironically positions himself in a supposedly intellectually superior position because he would mindlessly believe the claim of one guy instead of actual textual evidence

>>9264850
If the reader's interpretation is supported by textual evidence it can't be overruled because the author wasn't (and couldn't possibly be) careful enough to dispel any and all ambiguity that would lead to alternative interpretations.

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I can't tell if this board is genuinely this retarded or if the >muh authorial intent people are just trolling.

>>9264728
>Claims authorial intent is key to reading texts
>Misinterprets 'Author is dead' to mean whatever he wants it to mean
>Unknowingly negates his own position

>>9264876
Hm. I guess I'm not making myself clear.
I acknowledge that on an objective level, the text is what it is. If the text says A but the author meant B, then objectively the text still says A.
I guess I'm not really talking about literature strictly within the confines of literature. I'm talking about fictional universes in general more than anything, which I ascribe control only to the creator. I admire the creator's ability and their world which they specifically want to convey, so I can't help it really.
I understand what you mean, it's just, I've seen many people on theory videos who have the most nonsensical and "because fuck it" interpretations of books, sch as "oh, I think this character did this without the author knowing. That's the magic of story telling". It just really irks me, that sort of thing, and it's gotten me on the wrong end of this debate's stick. Sorry for wasting your time.

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>>9264933

>>9264995
Once the work is released into the wild, the text is stand-alone. The metaphorical umbilical chord has been cut.

>>9265005
So what is the general stance on retconning, then?
It sounds to me that if you're to believe in DoA, then you must reject retcons to an extent? This isn't really suitable for this board but, take the manga series One Piece. In one panel, a door is crushed, in the next it is repaired. So who is correct, the reader, who posits that the door is actually fixed, canonically, or the author, who owns the mistake and is adamant that really, the door IS broken?
At what point are we to separate what objectively happens in a work of fiction and the actual, official canon of said fiction?

>>9265023
That's an interesting question. Off my intuition, I'd say that they're two different texts now. For example, the Despecialized Edition of Star Wars comes to mind as the most prominent example.

>>9264995
Yeah postmodernism isn't as subjective as people seem to think and it doesn't really give free range to do whatever just because. Ideas like death of the author or deconstruction deal with material realities, such as that of the text. As a critique of culture it's like thinking outside the intention of capitalism to advance technology, medicine, etc. and look at the material reality it produces as dictated by consumer culture and popular art.

>>9265023
>uses fucking One Piece as an example
>when it is wel known that Shonen Jump authors tend to fuck up because of their horrible schedule that doesn't allow time for revisions until the release of the tankobon

In your example it was clearly a mistake, and Oda didn't realize it until later, and fixed it.

>>9265023
I think the interaction between a first edition and a revised edition, for example, is different to the interaction between a text and the reality to which it is supposed to refer. It's this latter interaction that is considered inadequate whereas in world-building of fantasy and the like, the author creates his own conditions of reality that are sometimes based on, but not directly controlled by, our own physical conditions.

>>9264055
If you're reading something that literally has zero meaning outside of the basic plot then you're reading something of very little worth that you shouldn't be performing any deeper analysis of anyway.

>>9265051
Does it matter what my example was you picky fuck? It should still be subject to the same criticism as regular literature.
Or what, so DoA is negated when the author is under time constraints or if it was clearly a mistake? Seems like flimsy reasoning. Surely if it's still there on the page it's open to the reader's interpretation.
>>9265044
So what if there is no revised edition? What do we consider canon, or what should we reasonably consider canon? To me it seems clear that in my case, we should just reasonably listen to the author but if DoA is such a valid theory, surely I'm not to listen to the author? Not trying to condemn, just genuinely curious and new to this philosophy.

>>9265088
The example is important, you blithering idiot. Not because it is a manga, it is also literature, but because the interpretation comes from a clear mistake, not because of your precious authorial intention.

>>9265088
>what should we reasonably consider canon
Whatever the consensus considers canon, apparently. Honestly speaking I'm still new to the field myself, and am speaking only from my surface-level understanding of Barthes' work.
>>9265110
>comes from a clear mistake
Which is exactly WHY it's so interesting.

>>9265023
>In one panel, a door is crushed, in the next it is repaired
You're reading it the wrong way.

>>9265110
>>9265088
Also, an interesting thought to complicate things - sometimes mistakes become canon in of themselves. To stick with the Star Wars, there's a Stormtrooper hitting their head that was a mistake. Apparently the fans liked it so much they added a sound effect to it.

>>9265110
I asked a question, all you have to do is give me an answer without being a pissy prick.
It is still authorial intention that that door was broken, even though it was drawn fixed the next panel. At what point do mistakes stop being minute enough for the reader to THEN be allowed to reasonably have their own valid interpretation?

>>9265119
Well, I agree that it is interesting even if it is a mistake, but in the end it depends on what edition of the work you are reading. If it's an unrevised edition then you analyze the work with the mistake taken into account as part of the work. If it's an revised edition, then you just read with the revision in mind. That's assuming there is a revision, which is not the same as a retconning. Take As I Lay Dying, for example. It was revised later by Faulkner, and now we only read the revised edition.

>>9265148
And I gave you an answer. If you didn't like my tone, too bad. How can it be authorial intent if it qas a mistake? Post the page, we don't even know the context here.

>>9264394
Calm down Ben Stiller. He's just talking in terms of literature.

>>9265162
>That's assuming there is a revision, which is not the same as a retconning.
How so? Disregarding authorial intent, what's the difference?
>and now we only read the revised edition
Which is exactly the sort of canon-consensus think I was talking about in >>9265119

I think we generally seem to agree though.

>>9265125
Joke? Just in case it's not, no.
>>9265133
One thing which bugs me is, at what point should we consider things canon?
Let's say you have two unrelated books by the same author. In one book, an object FROM the other book appears as an easter egg to please the fans. Fans now start drawing connections between the books, but the author never intended a serious link.
This is why I like to appeal to the author's intent. But, you. What's your stance on something like this? Everything becomes so muddled. How do we define canon? How and where is canon and continuity contained, and who is really in a position to decide?

>>9264594
>>9264602
This is insane. Validity is based on reasons for believing something. You guys are saying that because the book is not a mathematical proof with an unambiguous meaning it is impossible to determine the true intention of the author. This is true, however the claim that there exists exactly one intended meaning of the author still stands.

Every interpretation which aims for the true meaning of the author must necessarily include the intentions of the author.

>Since the author cannot dominate the structures of language, the author has no real control over what ends up in the text, and thus no real control over its interpretation by others.

No real control? Are you mad? It was never even suggested that the artist had any control over your interpretation. What the fuck are you talking about? The artist does not control your interpretation because the artist is just trying to say something and it is the readers responsibility to intemperate what he/she says so as to understand what was meant. It is not the artists job to cross the epistemological gap when you are the one reading the book they just have to make it easy to get there.

>>9265162
>How can it be authorial intent if it qas a mistake
It was the author's intent that the door was destroyed, but he drew it incorrectly by mistake.
>Post the page
Over 800 chapters and you expect me to dig that up? I've given you all the context you need, anyway, that's literally it.

>>9265192
Consensus in literature (and in every other field in general) is generally built within academia through vigorous debate and discourse. This sadly takes a lot of time.

If we take some less academic works, then you could say that the fanbase is the """""academia""""" of that work. It's probably going to be pasty white men who don't get laid enough anyway desu. This might be a huge stretch, but it's the best I've got.

>>9264470
Yes, but there is a big difference. If you turned around and called your post "art", then there would immediately be a possibility, perhaps even duty, of the appreciator to project and interpret meaning from it. This is what art is all about.

>>9265183
For example, using One Piece as an example, retconning would be to change Luffy's devil fruit from being the Gomu Gomu no Mi to be, say, Ace's fire devil fruit, even when it had already been stablished that one had eaten a certain devil fruit and not other. The story, then, changes.

A revision would be the way things are written. For example, redrawing of certain pages which have the same content but arranged in a different manner. The story doesn't change, but the visual aspect of it gets revised.

The difference is kinda subtle, but I think it's there.

>>9264903
More than this, an author might be totally unconscious of the hidden meanings he is unwittingly expression of himself on the page.

>>9264293
And the fact that people have been debating what he meant for literally thousands of years, and STILL argue about it, means what for your point?

As an English tutor, I will say that high school teachers (out of necessity, I sympathise) put undue emphasis on 'techniques' - such as, simile, alliteration, symbolism etc. - over 'form' for the simple case that they are much easier to teach. In the grand scheme of things however, an authors use of assonance means shit all - prose, in isolation, is written to sound pretty: it is when reviewing the text as a whole that true 'meaning' is able to be appreciated. The fact of the matter is, however, that deadlines - along with the fact that most kids will never *actually* read the book prescribed to them - means that it is easier to teach kids to identify techniques like 'blue curtains = depression' over a general recurrent theme like 'the untenability of traditional cultural institutions' or something.

Kids are dumb.

>>9264293
No, there are Christians that interpret Plato through Neoplatonists, and thus do not see him as a rationalist of any sort, but a mystic.

How is this an incorrect interpretation?

>>9265206
>owever the claim that there exists exactly one intended meaning of the author still stands.
There once was a man named Bob
He literally just lost his job
And in his mad head
So he went down the street
And inside Mary stuck his big knob.

Now, I as an author claim that this work has TWO meanings. The first meaning is that it's an allegory for world war two. The second meaning is that it's the foundation of my theory of quantum gravity.

Please be sure to understand that the poem is seprate from the autorial intent part - imagine it to be a seperate post. Those two meanings can in no-way interact or intersect. They are not even tangentially connected except for that they share the same text-space.

>>9265228
Texts are ethnographic. We can draw cultural and historical implications from a text that weren't intended by an author but are simply the product of an author's time. These conclusions are also informed by our own ethnographic contexts.

Hamlet is interpreted wildly different by each couple of generations. The way we interpret Hamlet now is not how the audience at time probably enjoyed it. Ignoring, of course, the differences in versions that we read.

>>9265225
Well what if you were to say that part of the story was that door getting crushed? And if you're to say that wasn't significant, surely the reader's interpretation dictates significance?
So you could still say the story has changed, as much as if any other change was made. It seems subjective to me.

>>9265225
Well, I'm inclined to say that any revision will split the text in two and there is no distinction.

>>9265243
Yes, and even on a smaller scale, we usually express more than we intend to, even just of our own twisted and conditioned personalities, most of the time we share anything.

>>9265249
Would removing a punctuation mark from a novel make it into a new text? What about adding footnotes?

>>9265210
You expect me to believe your example? That's the least you could do. You might be even misremembering the page. If you want serious discussion, at least give us an actual example, not a retelling of it. As you clearly said, the mistake was not intentional. Why are we arguing about it then?

>>9265249
Well, certainly, but there is a difference between a revision and a retconning, we can agree on that, yes?

>>9265244
I wouldn't know if it were significant or not, I don't even know the text we are dealing with here. I don't think it is subjective in so far as not all changes haves the same impact.

>>9265258
Yes it would. That's why editors of Shakespeare have a hard time editing his texts. As for your example, it wouldn't be a radically new text, but it would be a different one, simply because they are not the same.

>>9265270
>Well, certainly, but there is a difference between a revision and a retconning, we can agree on that, yes?
In a practical sense? Yes! Absolutely. From a literary criticism sense? I'm unconvinced.

>>9265279
Then what about the differences between the quarto and folio versions of different Shakespeare plays? They are full of revisions, sometimes even important ones, like Othello's Judean/Indian polemic or Hamlet and King Lear's texts. How can we account for that? I would say, for example, that the difference in King Lear between the speaker of the last lines in quarto (Albany) and folio (Edgar) is not a revision, but a retconning, since it radically changes the interpretation of the play, but a difference between, say, two words with similar meanings would be a revision.

I don't know, man, the difference between revision and retconning is kinda arbitrary, I admit.

>>9265270
>You expect me to believe your example?
Literally what does it matter if my example is real or not? THEORETICALLY then. Jesus. It doesn't detract from the discussion of my example.
>the mistake was not intentional. Why are we arguing about it then?
The point is whether or not a reader can reasonably interpret that fixed door as canonically fixed. If that is the case, then surely we should always appeal to authorial intent. What's the difference between that mistake and any other? What if JK Rowling claimed now that Harry was really a girl named Donna Kebab? It it's clearly a mistake, do we accept the retcon as canon even if she doesn't rewrite the books?
>I wouldn't know if it were significant or not, I don't even know the text we are dealing with here. I don't think it is subjective in so far as not all changes haves the same impact.
My point is, at what point are we supposed to magically know when it stops being significant? This applies to any similar instance, you don't need to know about the given example. Significance and level of impact are subjective concepts.

>>9265307
The fact that you can distinguish them all (even the non-retcon revisions) as different texts really just supports my view of them all just being completely separate.

Two twins dressed the same are two different people, are they not?

>>9265313
The reader may or may not interpret is as being fixed, it depends on what impact it will have on its reading.

It's not a question about it "magically" stopping being significant. It's not as arbitrary as you think it is. And that's because we have a text to back-up our readings.

>>9265347
But we are not discussing whether they are different texts or not, but on what means that difference rests.

What does 'interpretation' even mean. It's such a meaningless concept, you can't have a 'single' interpretation - not because meaning is inherently subjective (which it is) but because a text is comprised of so many different layers, including contradictions and paradoxes, that a single text itself contains multiple interpretations even before any external party stumbles upon it.

For example, what is your 'interpretation' of Brave New World?

That humanity is naturally inclined toward conformity?
That there is no 'truer' sense of self than the primitive?

Both of these are valid interpretations of the same text, and the same person can argue them both without coming into conflict. But what was Huxley's interpretation? It is meaningless to talk about the 'author's interpretation' because a book itself is so inherently multifarious and polyvocal that interpretations themselves are complex and layered.

>>9265237
Alright, there doesn't have to be exactly one meaning. Whatever (countable) number of meanings you intend to put in the text, those are the only true interpretations of what is being said.

What about uncountably-infinite meanings?
Then it does not mean anything at all.

This is all secondary to the argument that the author's intention as contained within the text is necessary for a true interpretation of that text.

>>9264003
i havent had a single teacher do this. they've always concentrated on the character's relationships and overall plot and themes of the story.

>>9265364
The point is, why in literature must we identify the main body of the story and separate it from say, a broken, seemingly inconsequential door? If we're being objective, surely we should view all parts of the text as being of equal importance.

>>9264003
>How does /lit/ defend itself against the "blue curtains" argument?
It's a broad generalization that is enforced by cherry picking. Depends on the Author, the work, and the teacher. AS it is, it just seems to me like a "ugghh high school was so gay, I hated being forced to read."

>>9265230
Do you deny that Plato meant to say something when he wrote his books?

>>9265388
No, just that nobody gives two shits what Plato meant as long as your interpretation of the text is on solid grounds.

>>9265388
Yes, I deny that he meant to say ONE thing with each text.

Fuck, he's a TERRIBLE example to use to prove your point. Why do you think he wrote in dialogues? Because for him, the delivering of points was MEANT to be tailored and understood differently by each person, and writing down philosophical treatises (a la Aristotle) is dangerous because it insinuates that the text contains a solid point rather than a discourse. Hell, the Platonic scripts are constantly throwing contradictions into their own points and themes. As soon as you think you've got Plato figured out he undermines his own point. Not only are contradictory interpretations of Plato's points valid, they are right there IN the fucking work.

>>9265388
Plato's dialogues were advertisements for his school. All they mean is: give me money.

>>9265232
The claim is that a correct interpretation exists and it is based on what Plato intended to say in his writing.

If someone tells you,
>My house is on fire.
do you believe that he is saying that is life is being metaphorically consumed by some event, or do you believe that his house is actually on fire?

The answer you give to this question does not matter because it would be based on what you believe was intended by him saying,
>My house is on fire.

>>9265419
>art follows the same rules as real life
This is why you are autistic.

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I don't really get why you people feel the need to go so fucking far with this "the author is dead" shit. You sound like some kind of cult and it's seriously embarrassing. I agree that the authors intentions are not necessarily the final word and that valuable interpretation can be gained from text even if it isn't what the author had in mind, but this weird shit about straight up saying that their intentions are worth LESS than the opinions of Joe Schmo and that their intentions should be ignored seems like nothing but the encouragement of moral relativism and anti-intellectualism by trying to make everyone into a special snowflake who gets participation awards, and by trying to quiet those who seek meaningful interpretation and knowledge.

>>9264886
Huh, my professor just recommended this in our lecture today

>>9265430
's fucking great. I'm at lecture 13 and Freud is a fucking hack and I hate him.

>>9265428
Nobody said that, kid.

>>9265434
Oh, never mind.

It's always disappointing to me that "debates" over whether authorial intent is a good metric for deciding which interpretations are "valid" remain at the level of a dialogue between author and the populace. We should really be getting down to the stronger arguments: the author's singular, unique "intent" is not accessible to them either.

This is pretty obvious from research in neurology and psychology. The mind isn't some platonic essence that emanates firmly sealed thoughts. Conscious vs. unconscious, the structure of memory, etc. all make the idea of "intents" as these singular descriptions attached to a text sound kind of stupid. Why should we believe the author even remembers the reason why they wrote the text to begin with? The fact that they might have just *forgotten* is only one of a number of issues.

Moreover, this lack of singularity is inherent in linguistic meaning. Every time we use a word we invoke all kinds of denotations, connotations, metaphors, etc. Even if people who write books have such radically different psychological structures that there are no worries about conscious vs. unconscious operations, memory imperfections, etc., it would be no more reasonable to invoke a singular intention because the meaning that's supposed to be immediately presented to the author (and projected to us) is split up, multiple in itself.

>>9265428
>>9265435

Yeah, any external commentary provided by the author is ALWAYS taken into account when reviewing a text? But author's rarely provide comprehensive breakdowns of their own work (otherwise, why would they have written it in the first place) so inevitably their commentary can only be used *in conjunction* with your own and other's interpretations of a text.

Honestly, the author is *dead* only in principle. For the purpose of analysis of, scholars rarely ever completely discredit the word of an author... if anything, any external authorial clue is relished. Typically, the first port of call when struggling with interpretation is the author's personal diaries or earlier drafts.

>>9265461
Yes, that is quite true.

>>9265398
Solid grounds would be based on the intended meaning of what he wrote as contained in the text.
>>9265414
>>9265401
I AM NOT SAYING THAT HE MEANT ONLY ONE THING.
I am saying that there exists an interpretation that can be said to be true and that this interpretation is derivative of the intentional meaning of the text.

For example, the word state has multiple meanings, but in the context of Plato's writing it is clear in Republic that when he uses the word "state" he means the institution and not the "state of being." This is the problem with reading unintended meanings into the text. It ceases to make any sense whatsoever because there is no basis for understanding the author's purpose.

I cannot believe that people actually believe this bullshit about
>the author is dead
>the intentions of the author cannot be completely understood
>therefore fuck intentions
>any interpretation of the text is therefore valid
>fuck what the author meant to say
>I get to say what the author meant to say
>this isn't rape

>>9265484
Kek, I just wanted to say Plato was a money-grubber. Count me out of your obviouservations.

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>>9265484
>Solid grounds would be based on the intended meaning of what he wrote as contained in the text.

>>9265484
Man you be spergin, and you ignored the main point. Again, why do you think Plato used dialogues? I'll answer for you (since otherwise you are likely to go on an irrelevant rant about the meaning of the word used). He used dialogues to support the point being made in this thread: Writing invites the reader into a discourse.

>>9265490
>>9265495
You have missed the boat.
Any valid interpretation is ultimately based on what the author meant to say. Otherwise, it is irrelevant, or at best conjecture.

We are trying to answer the question,
>What did the author mean when he said X.

Any answer to this question would be able to be reduced to the form,
>I believe the author meant S.
So, the author meaning S can be either true or false and that is, I will repeat myself again, based on what the author meant when writing it.

What about this is hard to understand?
You can claim the author meant Y and that clam is either true or false.

Am I missing something here?

>>9265561
I wonder the drill one would need to get through your head.

>>9265564
I wonder if you could actually explain this concept.

>>9265570
Not to you.

>>9265561
>Any valid interpretation is ultimately based on what the author meant to say.
This is the debate in the thread.

>We are trying to answer the question,
>What did the author mean when he said X.
And some of us are NOT trying to answer this question, instead:
>what does X mean?

It's like you're debating in a thread but have no idea what the debate is about!

>>9265582
Did you read venn diagram?>>9264003

This is about what the author meant and what people think the author meant.
Where is your head?

>>9265587
We have moved past that to a debate around the notion that the author is dead. What, you want a whole thread of hundreds of responses to the OP?

But why would they write it if it had no meaning?

>>9265605
Why do you do anything when life has no meaning?

But more practically, it has a meaning to the aurhor but that is not the only meaning. It also has a meaning to the reader, and a work of art does not belong to either side but to the constantly shifting dynamics between them.

>>9265616
>Why do you do anything when life has no meaning?
I'm not trying to express an idea when I do things most of the time, whereas the whole point of literature is to express ideas and themes.

>>9265627
Have you ever written something and then come back to it later and realised it had whole undertones that you were not consciously thinking of when you wrote it?

>>9265635
No, because I think about what I write before I write it.

>>9265643
Oh OK. Honerable, eh? And do you ever suppose someone could ever find an idea in your work that you never consciously intended to communicate?

>>9265654
Not that guy, but even if they did "find" some idea that was unconsciously communicated. I would go revise the sentence to make it easier to understand what I meant BECAUSE MEANING IS INTENTIONAL.


>>9265564
>>9265582
>>9265599
I just read The Death of the Author, and this critique of literary analysis only makes sense if you posit that the past is not real and at the same time reject logic.

It is ironic that I am even making this post because Barthe is saying that the author (or scriptor as he put it) cannot intend anything, yet Barthe is intentionally saying something in this essay.

This is the most pants on head retarded thing that I have ever read, and I truly feel sorry for anyone who actually believes what he is saying because you must be living some extremely saddening existence to form a contradictory belief about a paper which is inherently contradictory.

>>9264003
The intersection in that Venn diagram should be a BLACK FUCKING HOLE.

>>9265654
They can find what they want, my point was that meaning is in everything written when writing if you're not writing pulp fiction.

>>9265683
>meaning is in everything
So what? Static on a TV means something.
The only thing that matters is the intended meaning of the author.

>>9265687
Someone writing about static on a tv would obviously mean something. Why else would they write it?

>>9265678
>he read Barthes's essay without any background knowledge and with a prejudices yet still wonders why it doesn't click inside his head

Sounds like a fruitful enterprise.

>>9265696
It doesn't click inside of my head because I'm not some crazy person who rejects reason, rationality, and the reality of the past.

Go find your nearest university and take a course on epistemology to improve your life.

>>9265206
>the claim that there exists exactly one intended meaning of the author still stands.

Ok? What is the issue?

>The artist does not control your interpretation because the artist is just trying to say something and it is the readers responsibility to intemperate what he/she says so as to understand what was meant

I think you're misinterpreting what I mean by 'control' but I couldn't really control for that. Follow the line of logic I presented

>>9264046
What about the "blue" scene in IJ? yes, it was the novel's turning point, but... why blue?

The idea that there is ever such thing as a "pure" motivation is already a naive misconception

>>9265428
see
>>9264933

>>9265441
Good post.

>>9265678
>yet Barthe is intentionally saying something in this essay.

Is he?

>>9265561
>Any valid interpretation is ultimately based on what the author meant to say. Otherwise, it is irrelevant, or at best conjecture.

You're shadow-boxing here

>>9265643
I wonder how people read the "author's intention" in surrealist automatism.

>>9265561
>Any valid interpretation is ultimately based on what the author meant to say. Otherwise, it is irrelevant, or at best conjecture.

Nonsense, the far more important consideration is interpreting what affect the writing has on the reader

>>9265749
Psychoanalysis.

>>9264003
if it wasn't important, they wouldn't mention it.
most of the time.

>>9264003
Easy. I say: I've frequently written things like 'the curtains were blue' intending that they'd give an impression of melancholy. Other writers I know do this as well. It's a fact - I know it firsthand - that the colours are meant to elicit emotion.

>>9264003
But the curtains weren't fucking blue. There were no curtains, they don't really exist. So if the author says the curtains are blue, there's obviously a reason for it that's relevant to the rest of the work. Do these people think that writers just make things up randomly?

>>9264080
this

>>9265773
>Do these people think that writers just make things up randomly?
The curtains were...were what...*looks around, spots liquor bottle*...blue...the curtains were fucking blue...*sips drink*

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>>9265781
in case ur dumb lol xD

>>9265773
Even if they did exist he chose to remark on them as a detail above all other describable phenomena at that moment

>>9265678
You might also enjoy (Socrates') Plato's written argument against writing down philosophy...

>>9265678
What if you LOVED the point you expressed, and the way it was expressed, but people continually found it brought up themes for them that you had never consciously commented on?

Do you think ambiguity could ever be a tool in itself for creative expression?

>>9265703
Yeah, no, you are just an idiot.

>>9265678
>reject logic.
the only logic that humans have created are formal logics which are based on feelings, not that you know this of course.

>>9264003
An author actually using the sentence "The curtains were blue" does not deserve literary analysis.

>>9265231
I'd rather not teach textual analysis at all if that's what you're going to teach them. It's pointless either way, as it will be trivial and stifling to those who intuitively get it, and either boring or mentally ossifying to those who don't.

>>9264308
No shit, that's why I always write "It can be argued that this might..." or "One can assume that..." or "Considering this pattern we can observe throughout the author's whole life...".

>>9264080
You go up to the author and ask him about his intentions.

>>9264055
>>9264725
You are making the incorrect assumption that the text has no other meaning beyond the the meaning that the author consciously put into the text. You are giving the author too much and too little credit at the same time. Language is symbolic and is the best example of a collective unconscious construct. You are not necessarily consciously aware of the meaning of everything you say, just of your immediate intent.

>>9264470
Art is communication. Your post is communication. When I read your post I'm interpreting it. If my knowledge of the words and sentence structures you used overlaps to a sufficient extent with yours then I will be able to interpret your statements with some accuracy.
I would be able to do that mostly unconsciously just like you were able to formulate your post mostly unconsciously. If I chose to consciously dissect and analyze your post I could come to the conclusion that you put into it something that you claim you didn't. Still as long as I had a reason to think that I have knowledge of the world and of language similar to yours I could insist with some degree of certainty that you did indeed put such a meaning in it without being aware of it. Of course, if in actual fact our world views varied beyond the scope of my comprehension then it would also be very likely that my interpretation would be wrong.

If I were interpreting a work of fiction then having knowledge of the time, culture and life experiences that shaped the author's understanding of the world would give me an advantage in understanding the sentiment, conscious or unconscious, that this author wanted, consciously or unconsciously, to communicate.

>>9265231
>kids are dumb
Really?
Your post makes it sound more like
>teachers are lazy

>>9265696
>he read Barthes's essay without any background knowledge and with prejudices
but muh death of the author

>>9265419
It depends on the context. Also, go read up on Biblical scholarship. It's all about interpretation now.

>>9265419
That's not an interpretation, that's a sober reading.

Nobody cares about a sober reading of Plato.

>>9265441
It's pretty obvious from talking to literally any artist.

There's a reason the Greeks invented the Muses.

>>9264009
underrated

>>9264003
But why did the author think it worth mentioning the colour of the curtains? Just because the author doesn't understand it himself doesn't necessarily mean your teacher is wrong, necessarily.

(Altough, being a teacher, they probably are. Yes i'm prejudiced.)

>>9265744
Barthes as an author function, you cretin. Holy fuck it's literally fucking postmodernism 101 how do you not know this shit.

>172 posts
>only one mention of hermeneutics

Every unconcealment is a concealment. We will never know pure authorial intent; all reading is interpretation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wL0ZUm6Ldlk&index=233&list=PLKURpFvJAszTncGUZpgbPCWHeACNDuDK4

He bought blue curtains because he was depressed
Can I get my award now

Someone post that one image somebody made a while back where it's this image and intersecting it is a massive red circle that says "VALID INTERPRETATIONS"

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>be me
>reading le morte d'arthur
>haha la mort de l'auteur kinda sounds similar
>shit out a 5-page meme essay with that title
>include a load of deliberately autistic crap about intention that no one cares about
>throw in a few footnotes for the bants
>send it off for publication
>pray that people will get the pun
>pray that the goofs and gags will land
>mfw people start to take it seriously
>mfw people are still debating it decades later

>>9267222
What does 'valid' even mean?

>>9266111
>implying the author is fully conscious of what he's doing
>implying he wouldn't lie, forget or even be able to articulate it fully

>>9264003
Its not like this is a topic thats be heavily debated since the beginning of written history or something.

>>9264470
You're a fucking retard; that's what I read into your post.

>>9266111
So Homer, what was your intention in writing the Iliad?

>>9267257
Well then it looks like you really can't derive author's intent from a text reliably.

>>9268137
Nobody else was writing good homosmut.