Re: nice theory...
J J R (jrovira@juno.com)
Mon, 23 Nov 1998 18:03:53 -0500 (EST)
I'm sorry, Scottie, but that's just not true. In previous posts I cited
T.S. Eliot and C.S. Lewis as people who are fairly conservative in their
views of interpreting literature but swear off the idea of authorial
intent. Eliot refused to answer questions put to him about his poem, The
Waste Land, because he said everything that's been said about it is far
better than anything he's thought of. Course, with poetry, and with that
kind of poetry, well...that's not completely fair. Of course Eliot's
work is subject to multiple interpretations. He is, by the way, looked
to as one of the originators of formalist criticism which eventually
distanced itself from authorial intent as the ground of meaning in
literature.
So let me go to C.S. Lewis, who wrote fairly straightforward fiction and
just oodles of prose. His fiction works range from allegory (The
Pilgrim's Regress, but he'd shoot me for calling it allegory), to
children's literature (The Chronicles of Narnia), to science fiction (his
trilogy), to something I can't really classify (The Great Divorce and the
Screwtape Letters), to literary fiction (Till We Have Faces--a retelling
of the myth of Cupid and Psyche, and his personal favorite). He also
happened to be a literary critic himself--Medieval and Renaissance
literature at Oxford, and then Cambridge.
He said, speaking as an author of fiction and not a critic, that the
"meaning" of his works would only be completely evident after people have
taken some time talking about them. He had his opinion, of course, but
how accurate his opinion was could only be gauged by what intelligent
readers had to say about his work. And yes, he did seem to distinguish
between some types of readers and others. I wish I could find the essays
right now, but they're buried in a box somewhere and I'm not up to
digging through them all right now :)
I picked these two authors because they knew a bit about criticism as
well. Besides being well recognized and credible. But there are MANY
lesser lights out there who, when asked, "what did you mean by that?"
answer, "I don't know." Not stupidly, either.
Jim
On Mon, 23 Nov 1998 20:40:15 +0000 Scottie Bowman <rbowman@indigo.ie>
writes:
>
> I wonder how many authors would, themselves, foreswear
> the theory of intention ?
>
> About the same number, I suspect, as those who regard their
> writing as an attempted '...communion between two thinking,
> feeling human beings...'
>
> The same ones, presumably, who know '...what literature
> should really be about...' [and who do not view it in that]
> '...rather silly and competitive in a way that has nothing
> to do with art...'
>
> Believe me. Damned few.
>
> Scottie B. the Patriarch
>
>
___________________________________________________________________
You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail.
Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com/getjuno.html
or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]