brouhaha

Jim said:
<< I could say that your arguments insisting upon the dependence of textual
meaning upon authorial intent [. . .] tended to have rather narrow
applications (to texts that dealt with specific "great themes"), so it's
questionable how relevant that theory of reading is given it doesn't apply
to every, or even most, or even most important, fictional texts written. >>

I'm not sure if this is true. I concede that it most probably sounded that
way when we started out, but if that's actually what I was saying, I think I
was wrong (and I don't remember well if that's quite what I was saying or
not).

I do remember trying then to insist that this doesn't apply only to a few
select texts. I brought up the "great ideas," I think, not to be exclusive
about literature so much as to attempt an explanation of my belief that, to
say it plainly, Some Things Never Change. I did not mean the "great ideas"
to be a set that was only relevant to a few books, but rather to be a set
that is relevant to all humans -- with some slight variation of
understanding and emphasis -- regardless of time or culture. You sought to
reject it with the evidence of Christian humility, which you positied as a
"new" virtue; but I rejecting this saying that, first, new things can come
and go without precluding some from sticking around, and second (and, as I
see it, much more importantly), Christian humility wasn't entirely new
anyway, but was a new take on piety, and suggestions of it can be found in
pre-Christian literature. In any case, I expect that the notion won't be
very helpful at this stage in the conversation and might as well be dropped
(at least for now).

And:
<< I think from here we can assert that it's literally impossible for an
author to intend every possible meaning a text can have. This staggers the
imagination. >>

I don't follow. I expect that this depends on how loosely we use "meaning."
It seems to me that, at least the way I was thinking of "meaning," the
possibilities in any particular text, while often very great, are seldom or
never quite so staggering as you suggest here. I can see how it would
stagger the imagination if any new take on a piece of literature, however
slightly different from some different take on it, were considered a wholly
independent meaning, but I don't think that I was thinking of meaning in
quite that way. More on "meaning" below.

And:
<< When dealing with texts of even marginal antiquity, some meanings simply
weren't available to the author. >>

This is what really got me. Here it becomes apparent to me that either we
have meant "meaning" in very, very different ways, or else that you read
literature and place value in readings in a way profoundly different from
the way that I do. In light of the the other thread, I expect that you're
saying this by including Tolkien's "applicability" as meaning. If a
meaning -- in the sense that I have meant the word, in which Tolkien's one
ring does not "mean" nuclear weapons (though it's applicable to them) -- was
wholly unavailable to the author, I think that it is hard or impossible for
me to acknowledge it as a valid meaning.

(As a humorous and only vaguely relevant aside, there is a not-entirely-rare
translation of Plato in which Socrates quotes Shakespeare. It always
startles me, and I am baffled by the translator's decision to do such a
thing.)

An example occurrs to me that might prove helpful. The following is from
Moby Dick, chapter one:

"And, doubtless, my going on this whaling voyage, formed part of the grand
programme of Providence that was drawn up a long time ago. It came in as a
sort of brief interlude and solo between more extensive performances. I
take it that this part of the bill must have run something like this:
"Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United States
"WHALING VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL
"BLOODY BATTLE IN AFFGHANISTAN"

Notice the contested election for US presidency, followed by battling in
Afghanistan. This sounds quite familiar. But what can we make of this?
There is, I don't doubt, a manner of interpretation that most all of us
would immediately dismiss as invalid and silly. Perhaps there's something
interesting to flesh out and talk about in why, exactly, most of us would be
so inclined.
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Received on Sun Apr 20 02:24:04 2003