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> If anyone can answer what the 'correct' interpretation of a piece of writing is, it's the author. Well, that's very much up for debate. The Intentional Falla

by SamBam 10y ago

> If anyone can answer what the 'correct' interpretation of a piece of writing is, it's the author. Well, that's very much up for debate. The Intentional Fallacy claims that authorial intent is not a valid part of artistic criticism or interpretation. That all you can judge a work on is the internal text and surrounding body of context, not notions of what was going on in the artist's head. The idea is debated, to be sure.

oddlyaromatic 10y ago
If the question, and the purpose of the exam, is framed as "why did the author do this or that?", then sure authorial intent has meaning to the question. And I certainly think what the author intended to mean can be culturally interesting. But for the individual experience of the work, intent beyond that included in the work itself doesn't have much bearing. So, to me, this post has a lot to do with the wrong kind of questions being asked of students. Poetry is not all about discovering what an author hoped you might feel and being "right". It's about your own experience of the words and ideas in the poem- or movie or whatever. I guess what I'm saying is poetry runs on the client?
nradov 10y ago
The ironic thing there is that the entire field of artistic criticism and interpretation is invalid (or at least not provably valid) and thus practitioners have no legitimate basis for claiming that particular techniques are more or less valid than others. The whole thing is built on a foundation of sand, and largely operates as a make-work jobs program for academics who would be otherwise unemployable.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 10y ago
  I wouldn't call it "invalid", but rather say that we should not be judging the success of our children on such a subjective item. There is value in such subjectivity, and it's a cultural exercise in which we can discover more about ourselves and others, but it has no place in an objective location like a standardized test.

by SamBam 10y ago

oddlyaromatic 10y ago

If the question, and the purpose of the exam, is framed as "why did the author do this or that?", then sure authorial intent has meaning to the question. And I certainly think what the author intended to mean can be culturally interesting. But for the individual experience of the work, intent beyond that included in the work itself doesn't have much bearing. So, to me, this post has a lot to do with the wrong kind of questions being asked of students. Poetry is not all about discovering what an author hoped you might feel and being "right". It's about your own experience of the words and ideas in the poem- or movie or whatever. I guess what I'm saying is poetry runs on the client?

nradov 10y ago

The ironic thing there is that the entire field of artistic criticism and interpretation is invalid (or at least not provably valid) and thus practitioners have no legitimate basis for claiming that particular techniques are more or less valid than others. The whole thing is built on a foundation of sand, and largely operates as a make-work jobs program for academics who would be otherwise unemployable.

SOLAR_FIELDS 10y ago
I wouldn't call it "invalid", but rather say that we should not be judging the success of our children on such a subjective item. There is value in such subjectivity, and it's a cultural exercise in which we can discover more about ourselves and others, but it has no place in an objective location like a standardized test.