Re: Jim's Problem with Authors

From: Jim Rovira <jrovira@drew.edu>
Date: Sat Oct 26 2002 - 09:54:43 EDT

I appreciate time constraints, believe me, and I have been (and in some ways
still are) in the same place you are -- working, going to school, etc.

Two things to consider in a brief reply for now:

1. You're begging the question in your argument -- your responses reaffirm
authorial intent rather than establish it on grounds separate from what's being
disputed.

2. I think we have a good example, in your post, of how "authorial intent" and
"textual meaning" run against one another. Re-read the following exchange:

<<> But the degree of sensibility is so great that I believe
> it anyway.
>

For what reason?"

It does not contradict. To see the reason, I refer you back to the very
sentence you quoted -- specifically to the first clause.

"The degree of sensibility is so great that. . ."

The grammar of the sentence is simple: if you pay attention (very little is
actually necessary), it answers your question.>>

I read your original sentence differently for two reasons: First, it was at the
end of a long paragraph (which you excluded here) in which you seemed to doubt
really being able to understand quite what authors were thinking.

Next, limiting my reading to the text in italics above (the first sentence in
the quote), I put the emphasis on the final word -- the word "anyway." The word
"anyway" makes your affirmation one that you hold **in the face of all evidence
to the contrary** -- evidence you presented in the text you didn't quote in your
reply. So you presented "facts" that seem to deny the validity of your beliefs,
then tell me you continue to hold to that belief "anyway."

It is perfectly reasonable for me to ask you "why" -- and I did so, paying very
close attention to your words -- words which you, being the author, apparently
mean something somewhat more than, or other than, what you intended. Prefacing
your "anyway" with the statement, "the degree of sensibility is so great..."
isn't quite enough -- this read like a restatement of what you've been saying
all along. Thus, your sentence sounded to me like you were just saying that you
choose to believe what you believe despite evidence to the contrary, where you
thought you were presenting something new.

Makes it difficult to always trust "intent," doesn't it?

I won't harp on this point, though, because I feel you did answer my question
"why" in the rest of your post (thank you very much) by developing the idea of
"degree of sensibility." I will respond when I have more time.

Finally, you accused me of condescension and presumption because I said that you
didn't understand the meaning of your own words. Your reply, of course, was
where you begin begging the question -- I said that grammatically, "intent" is
something that resides in the author's mind. You said, no, it's in both the
mind and the text.

That is exactly the point we are arguing -- how much of the author's mind can we
infer from the author's text?

We both agree that intent resides in the author's mind, at least.

But I would further respond that you yourself are guilty of being arrogant by
assuming you can't possibly be guilty of this fault -- the fault of not
understanding your own words. I think every author is guilty of this to some
degree, myself included. Excluding yourself from even the possibility of this
fault then, as a result, blaming me for not paying enough attention is, in my
view, the epitome of condescension. It's part of the error that goes along with
insisting that textual meaning is defined by authorial intent -- it fails to
recognize that multiple readings are possible, and a single author's intention
can never cover all of them.

I think it is arrogant to assume any mind can cover every linguistic possibility
of a text and account for it. But this is not an arrogance I myself am guilty
of.

Jim

PS I have my own time constraints too, and will respond to the rest of your post
(where I feel the real meat of the discussion lies...this post was a very long
quibble) in a later e-mail.

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Received on Sat Oct 26 09:35:46 2002

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