~~ on authorial intent & puppy dogs
Jul. 24th, 2005 02:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkaI just read an interesting post by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nicolae about authorial intent, basically saying the text is all that matters, screw the Author. And actually, i agree that the text is what matters, I just don't agree this means any old interpretation is valid, or that you cannot see the gestalt of the conscious and unconscious intent (meta-intent?) through a thorough, clearheaded reading.
I don't think it's fair to equate 'authorial intent' with what the author -thinks- is her intent; I myself know I often write stories with depths I'm unaware of, and that contain things the readers find which surprise & delight me & I'd never thought I meant, but when said to me, I realize it did kinda work out that way, didn't it. So there's that.
But.
I think there is such a concept as 'interrogating the text reasonably', if not correctly. Following the clues; extrapolating with the least possible amount of bias or pre-existing agenda. If you -look- for something in particular in a text, in other words, you will most likely find it. However, if you allow the text to speak for itself, you-the-reader are more likely to approach something like 'consensual reality' or possibly something one might cautiously call objectivity. Something which has to do with facts rather than only opinions and emotional projections ('this is what I -want- to be there') onto the text.
Now, to bring it down to H/Hr-ers and anything I'd ever read in defense of that reading of the books-- it seems that they're only ever talking about looking for clues to support that pairing specifically and on purpose. Whoever's hit by H/Hr and only H/Hr in the text and cannot see the R/Hr clues no matter how how hard they look--? I'd like to see their argument look anything remotely as well-constructed and reasonable as this-- that is to say, backed up by quotes, reasonably unbiased, clearly made and admitting and rebutting the opposing viewpoints. I've... never seen this. I've only seen H/Hr-ers saying they -want- to see the vision of True Love from friendship that their pairing represents, and therefore JKR has secretly written it even if there's all the supposed R/Hr stuff as a red herring.
I think in my mind, the simplest interpretation-- Occam's Razor, if you will-- is the one most likely to be what I consider 'authorial intent'. And while other theories are -fun- and not purely wrong so much as... er, supplementary(??)-- if they indeed consider all, not just some canon facts-- that simplest explanation is the one that most represents the nature of any given text to me.
This is my personal take on it, based more on my intuition rather than the bunch of courses I've taken for my English major, most of which convince me I don't think of stories in a way that current lit-crit circles find... uh, trendy. Or correct. Or whatever. But yeah-- I think the 'atomic' explanation of the LoTR books is just silly, regardless of what JRRT thought. I mean... because it is so... out of left field & elaborate and... inelegant in regards to the text, really, way moreso than some decree from 'above'.
In other words: the only thing that matters is the text, yes, but it helps if you interpret it without an obvious and extraneous agenda.
~~
Also, I've seen a bit of Ron-bashing around about how he's a stupid boy and Hermione doesn't deserve him 'cause she's too intelligent, etc.... And it makes me want to write paeans to boyish stupidity, dorkiness and the awkward-yet-mostly-well-meaning idiocy that is one of the defining features of the adolescent male.
Man, I couldn't stand them when I was their age, but now I can't get enough of them. Possibly I'm just overly sentimental. Okay, I know I am. But. They're just... too harmless and foolish to take seriously, and yet are so full of... flaws & growing pains & pure instinct & emotion & aggression & hormones & foggy-yet-desperate reasoning that... I just feel so protective and adoring I can't take it. Awww, snakes and snails and puppy dog tails <3<3<3
...See, silly, silly boys. I just want to giggle fondly and clasp them pervily to my chest. Awww.
PS. So much love to Aspen, the queen of fumbly imperfectly perfect boys and their cocks <3<3<3<3<3 (Among other things!!)
nicolae about authorial intent, basically saying the text is all that matters, screw the Author. And actually, i agree that the text is what matters, I just don't agree this means any old interpretation is valid, or that you cannot see the gestalt of the conscious and unconscious intent (meta-intent?) through a thorough, clearheaded reading.I don't think it's fair to equate 'authorial intent' with what the author -thinks- is her intent; I myself know I often write stories with depths I'm unaware of, and that contain things the readers find which surprise & delight me & I'd never thought I meant, but when said to me, I realize it did kinda work out that way, didn't it. So there's that.
But.
I think there is such a concept as 'interrogating the text reasonably', if not correctly. Following the clues; extrapolating with the least possible amount of bias or pre-existing agenda. If you -look- for something in particular in a text, in other words, you will most likely find it. However, if you allow the text to speak for itself, you-the-reader are more likely to approach something like 'consensual reality' or possibly something one might cautiously call objectivity. Something which has to do with facts rather than only opinions and emotional projections ('this is what I -want- to be there') onto the text.
Now, to bring it down to H/Hr-ers and anything I'd ever read in defense of that reading of the books-- it seems that they're only ever talking about looking for clues to support that pairing specifically and on purpose. Whoever's hit by H/Hr and only H/Hr in the text and cannot see the R/Hr clues no matter how how hard they look--? I'd like to see their argument look anything remotely as well-constructed and reasonable as this-- that is to say, backed up by quotes, reasonably unbiased, clearly made and admitting and rebutting the opposing viewpoints. I've... never seen this. I've only seen H/Hr-ers saying they -want- to see the vision of True Love from friendship that their pairing represents, and therefore JKR has secretly written it even if there's all the supposed R/Hr stuff as a red herring.
I think in my mind, the simplest interpretation-- Occam's Razor, if you will-- is the one most likely to be what I consider 'authorial intent'. And while other theories are -fun- and not purely wrong so much as... er, supplementary(??)-- if they indeed consider all, not just some canon facts-- that simplest explanation is the one that most represents the nature of any given text to me.
This is my personal take on it, based more on my intuition rather than the bunch of courses I've taken for my English major, most of which convince me I don't think of stories in a way that current lit-crit circles find... uh, trendy. Or correct. Or whatever. But yeah-- I think the 'atomic' explanation of the LoTR books is just silly, regardless of what JRRT thought. I mean... because it is so... out of left field & elaborate and... inelegant in regards to the text, really, way moreso than some decree from 'above'.
In other words: the only thing that matters is the text, yes, but it helps if you interpret it without an obvious and extraneous agenda.
~~
Also, I've seen a bit of Ron-bashing around about how he's a stupid boy and Hermione doesn't deserve him 'cause she's too intelligent, etc.... And it makes me want to write paeans to boyish stupidity, dorkiness and the awkward-yet-mostly-well-meaning idiocy that is one of the defining features of the adolescent male.
Man, I couldn't stand them when I was their age, but now I can't get enough of them. Possibly I'm just overly sentimental. Okay, I know I am. But. They're just... too harmless and foolish to take seriously, and yet are so full of... flaws & growing pains & pure instinct & emotion & aggression & hormones & foggy-yet-desperate reasoning that... I just feel so protective and adoring I can't take it. Awww, snakes and snails and puppy dog tails <3<3<3
...See, silly, silly boys. I just want to giggle fondly and clasp them pervily to my chest. Awww.
PS. So much love to Aspen, the queen of fumbly imperfectly perfect boys and their cocks <3<3<3<3<3 (Among other things!!)
