Re: Before the Law and the open sky.

Daniel --

I think the "Godot" example works because the set is minimal -- the DC
theater group could change the set and costume and communicate all this
without altering a single line (which is what I think they did).

One problem we've had with our "authorial intent" debate is that we're
accepting far too little as the "meaning" of a text -- again, this is
repetition, but if all you can say about Kafka's "intent" for "The
Trial" is that he meant it to be an open-ended work, have you really
said much about it? Can you go into more detail about his intent and
still stick to this?

I know what some people think about literary critics here, but this
debate is like a short history of criticism. People argued for
authorial intent for decades -- some critics were better than others,
but ultimately you read it all, line up 3 or 4 or 5 groups of readings,
all radically different, sometimes mutually exclusive, and all
convincingly argued as the author's probable intent, and where are you
left? Really nowhere. Still not knowing.

Jim

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Received on Thu Mar 6 18:51:27 2003