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No, intent is inferred from the only valid source, the work itself.Such thinking essentially states that the authors intended meaning and purpose for the exposition are fundamentally unnecessary to the readers interpretation.This view is extremely useful in a postmodern relativistic framework as it successfully makes the reader or the consumer of the story the only authority on its meaning as opposed to the author or creator of the work.The unfortunate side effect is that this view strips the artist themselves of all value; it implies that only the product of their creation is of any importance.
Poetry succeeds because all or most of what is said or implied is relevant; what is irrelevant has been excluded, like lumps from pudding and bugs from machinery. For all the objects of our manifold experience, especially for the intellectual objects, for every unity, there is an action of the mind which cuts off roots, melts away contextor indeed we should never have objects or ideas or anything to talk about. A perennial debate in literature is if an authors interpretation should be respected regarding their own work, and if we should judge their work by the success of their intentions. Two scholars of the twentieth century New Critics, William Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley, organized the anti-intentional side into an essay titled The Intentional Fallacy. While not universally accepted or remotely full-proof, the polemic does posit some devastating points to the opposition, and is a must read for anyone interested. The reason is that, while I was already familiar with the anti-arguments, I was not well-versed with the pros, and as WimsattBeardsley invoked them for repudiation I felt their pull. Indeed this debate is still much alive and informs how we interpretjudge works today. To summarize: a work of art comes from an artist: that is indisputable. And we assume that the artist had some sort of motivation, or intent, going into it. But whether or not that intent made its way into the work is irrelevant. But if we find no evidence, then it didnt, and as such the artist made a mistake. That mistake shouldnt invalidate the work, but necessitate an interpretation different from the artists original intent. Plus, how could we validate this intent What if, hypothetically, the artist was lying, joking, or forgetful What then The fact is there is no real connection between intent and interpretation, as art is not a transparent medium, and even if it was (prosaic communication) there is no guarantee that what you meant to say is what you actually said. Well fine, but then should we judge a work by how successful the communication of the intent was If it achieved its goal Again no. First of all, how could we ascertain intent If the artist is dead, then we need to rely on biographicalhistoricalpsychologicalsociological factors, which are not only glorified guesswork but take us away from, not towards, the text. If the artist is alive and honest and articulate, then fine, but that suggests a works intention is based off of private knowledge, which is a problem when a work of art exists in the public sphere. We cannot be expected to refer back to the artist every time, nor can they be expected to attach a note to their work explaining their intent.
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