ruined by interpretation

[cynara]

In class we had to read "The Great Gatsby" as a class novel study. I finished the book in a week-end, reading it for hours on end. I want to say now that i liked it very much and since have gone on to read Fitzgerald's other novels.

My post is not about the quality of the novel in question but on how my class butchered the book through analysis. Gatsby was torn apart chapter by chapter, each bit of meaning was squeezed out and examined. The book was ruined, every bit of mystery completely removed. So my question is have you ever had a book spoiled for you by over analysis and over thinking? I know that books should be looked at in depth but have you had any experience of something like this?

[higley]

I've been fortunate that nothing has been ruined for me, though I've often been annoyed by overanalysis. This calls to mind, however, Ray Bradbury's heated objections to the way that so many have interpreted Fahrenheit 451, mainly that it is publicly regarded as a criticism of censorship but he actually intended it to be more of a denunciation of the increasing influence of television and pop culture.

[JBI]

It depends on the teacher. My highschool teachers ruined reading Macbeth and King Lear for me, whereas my professors have given me great insight and appreciation for things I used to loathe. I've cured myself of my problem with Macbeth, and with Lear, yet I still haven't gotten over my hating of Ondaatje's poetry, though I suspect that wasn't the teacher, but rather Ondaatje's fault.

[sixsmith]

Hey at least they gave you texts to ruin. I didn't study a text until half way through my 2nd year. I studied Genre. Who knew the 'city' was a genre? Who knew the 'flaneur' was central to it? And who knew Lacan and Foucault had anything to do with it? Questions i didn't care about then and don't care about now.

[mono]

In class we had to read "The Great Gatsby" as a class novel study. I finished the book in a week-end, reading it for hours on end. I want to say now that i liked it very much and since have gone on to read Fitzgerald's other novels.
Glad to hear you enjoyed The Great Gatsby - Fitzgerald has remained as one of my favorite authors. Give Tender is the Night a chance, if you have time - truly a work of art!

My post is not about the quality of the novel in question but on how my class butchered the book through analysis. Gatsby was torn apart chapter by chapter, each bit of meaning was squeezed out and examined. The book was ruined, every bit of mystery completely removed. So my question is have you ever had a book spoiled for you by over analysis and over thinking? I know that books should be looked at in depth but have you had any experience of something like this?
Reading a book and sharing interpretations can get quite exhausting, and, I agree, it can ruin a book. I love hearing others' opinions and interpretations, even if I disagree with them, explaining why I joined this forum originally; for me, it takes a lot to ruin a book, and I normally find the reason behind that with others pushing their views upon others - both teachers and the 'know-it-alls.' In this light, however, one can see a novel from multiple perspectives, notice details s/he failed to see, and encorporate different backgrounds of knowledge to interpret the novel - both a blessing and a curse sometimes.
Some books that got butchered for me: Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Middlemarch by George Eliot, and almost all of the works by Jane Austen and Charles Dickens.
In my opinion, some books, despite how much attention they receive, get better and better with the more studying and discussing they need - books like Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon, The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Prophet by Khalil Gibran, and many works by James Joyce, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Albert Camus.

[Lokasenna]

It is very much the way, alas. Fortunately, you eventually become immune to it, and great literature will eventually return to your original perception. I remember one of my lecturers butchering Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey by insisting it had a strong political subtext, something which caused me almost physical pain. But now, I've entirely purged my mind of his drivel, and can still enjoy the poem for what it is.

[kiki1982]

I was lucky, as it seems...

My only thing that was really ruined was really Antignone. I was not educated enough (nor was the rest of the class) in Greek culture to understand the problem with the Gods and everything.

My liking of Shakespeare was not affected as he was still too dfficult. We did exerpts of Romeo and Juliet, but we did not analyse.

In French, we did Le Rhinocéros of Ionesco. I don't think the teacher got it either... I don't have the impression anyway. It wasn't totally ruined, though...
What we read for the rest, was total crap, anyway.

In Dutch we did general style, so we never overanalysed.

As Blackadder put it before kicking Shakespeare: 'And that is for every schoolboy in future, looking for a joke in your Much Ado about Nothing.' (:lol: great :D) I never had that poblem. I praise myself lucky...


It is very much the way, alas. Fortunately, you eventually become immune to it, and great literature will eventually return to your original perception. I remember one of my lecturers butchering Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey by insisting it had a strong political subtext, something which caused me almost physical pain. But now, I've entirely purged my mind of his drivel, and can still enjoy the poem for what it is.

Wrong political subtext? How is that possible? An author writes always in th right context, never mind what the reader thinks...

Can you actually clarify that?

[PeterL]

I like interpreting literature, and it doesn't harm the literature; but overinterpreting and misinterpreting literature do harm the enjoyment.

[kelby_lake]

I was lucky, as it seems...

My only thing that was really ruined was really Antignone. I was not educated enough (nor was the rest of the class) in Greek culture to understand the problem with the Gods and everything.

My liking of Shakespeare was not affected as he was still too dfficult. We did exerpts of Romeo and Juliet, but we did not analyse.

In French, we did Le Rhinocéros of Ionesco. I don't think the teacher got it either... I don't have the impression anyway. It wasn't totally ruined, though...
What we read for the rest, was total crap, anyway.


As Blackadder put it before kicking Shakespeare: 'And that is for every schoolboy in future, looking for a joke in your Much Ado about Nothing.' (:lol: great :D) I never had that poblem. I praise myself lucky...



I really like Antigone, both versions. I love the conflict between the gods who pass judgement on the poor vulnerable mortals and the tragedy and flaws and...I can't believe we have to do Greek comedy.

Rhinoceros is about Nazism. Everyone starts turning into rhinos so the man starts wishing his skin was all wrinkly, etc...even though the rhinos are creepy.

We were forbidden from interpreting the poem 'Nutting' as being sexual in class, but I did manage to put the interpretation into my A-level exam :)

[blazeofglory]

I agree texts are ruined by interpretations and translations.

[LitNetIsGreat]

I don't believe that any piece of literature can be over-analysed to the point that it ruins the work itself. Different points of analysis are merely different viewpoints that can be taken or leaven at the door.

The only way that an analysis can possibly be harmful is if a teacher/critic argues that a piece has only one possible meaning, or restricts the free interpretation of a work of art for their students. Either way this is trying to reduce the art, and the students' appreciation of it, which is simply a fault of the teacher/critic and not of the object of analysis itself.

There is no such thing as over-analysing literature.

[stlukesguild]

I don't believe that any piece of literature can be over-analysed to the point that it ruins the work itself. Different points of analysis are merely different viewpoints that can be taken or leaven at the door.

The only way that an analysis can possibly be harmful is if a teacher/critic argues that a piece has only one possible meaning, or restricts the free interpretation of a work of art for their students. Either way this is trying to reduce the art, and the students' appreciation of it, which is simply a fault of the teacher/critic and not of the object of analysis itself.

There is no such thing as over-analysing literature.

I agree. No work of art of any real merit can be reduced to a single "meaning" or interpretation. And certainly I agree that the only possible harm is that wrought by the critic/scholar/teacher who insists upon a single correct interpretation. I won't go so far as to suggest there are no "wrong" interpretations, however.

[LitNetIsGreat]

I won't go so far as to suggest there are no "wrong" interpretations, however.

Well maybe not "no" wrong interpretations, but as long as a fair interpretation is derived from the text itself, strictly speaking, there can be relatively few "wrong" readings.

[JBI]

Well maybe not "no" wrong interpretations, but as long as a fair interpretation is derived from the text itself, strictly speaking, there can be relatively few "wrong" readings.

You'd be surprised. Plenty of wrong, or stupid readings, or simply readings with no substance (like people who comment something like, "the words chosen here are beautifully written and evoke wonderful images" or other such nonsense). I'd say 80% of academic readings are meh, 40% bad, and 95% of unscholarly readings are pretty mediocre, in terms of accuracy. It's not so uncommon to see complete debasements in criticism, let alone the common reader. Besides which, the bulk of bad readings suffer from not having anything interesting to say - that's the real crime, I think, a teacher taking the SparkNotes, and essentially dictating it to their class. Quite simply, a good class on literature assumes that the students good enough as to be able to write the sparknotes themselves, and thereby teaches something which can't be downloaded from the internet.

[meh!]

Nope.

[PeterL]

Well maybe not "no" wrong interpretations, but as long as a fair interpretation is derived from the text itself, strictly speaking, there can be relatively few "wrong" readings.

There are an awful lot of interpretations out there that have so little connection with the text that one wonders if someone didn't attach something that was meant for a different text.

[Emil Miller]

I've been fortunate that nothing has been ruined for me, though I've often been annoyed by overanalysis. This calls to mind, however, Ray Bradbury's heated objections to the way that so many have interpreted Fahrenheit 451, mainly that it is publicly regarded as a criticism of censorship but he actually intended it to be more of a denunciation of the increasing influence of television and pop culture.

I haven't read Farenheit 451 but I find it ironic that it is intended as a denunciation of the increasing influence of television and pop culture when, according to Wickipedia, Ray Bradbury is an author of science fiction, fantasy and horror, three of the staples of television and pop culture.

[wessexgirl]

You'd be surprised. Plenty of wrong, or stupid readings, or simply readings with no substance (like people who comment something like, "the words chosen here are beautifully written and evoke wonderful images" or other such nonsense). I'd say 80% of academic readings are meh, 40% bad, and 95% of unscholarly readings are pretty mediocre, in terms of accuracy. It's not so uncommon to see complete debasements in criticism, let alone the common reader. Besides which, the bulk of bad readings suffer from not having anything interesting to say - that's the real crime, I think, a teacher taking the SparkNotes, and essentially dictating it to their class. Quite simply, a good class on literature assumes that the students good enough as to be able to write the sparknotes themselves, and thereby teaches something which can't be downloaded from the internet.

Not a maths scholar JBI?

[LitNetIsGreat]

You'd be surprised. Plenty of wrong, or stupid readings, or simply readings with no substance (like people who comment something like, "the words chosen here are beautifully written and evoke wonderful images" or other such nonsense). I'd say 80% of academic readings are meh, 40% bad, and 95% of unscholarly readings are pretty mediocre, in terms of accuracy. It's not so uncommon to see complete debasements in criticism, let alone the common reader. Besides which, the bulk of bad readings suffer from not having anything interesting to say - that's the real crime, I think, a teacher taking the SparkNotes, and essentially dictating it to their class. Quite simply, a good class on literature assumes that the students good enough as to be able to write the sparknotes themselves, and thereby teaches something which can't be downloaded from the internet.

Yes I know that there is a lot of pretty poor stuff around criticism wise. I remember once reading a scholarly piece on Wilde which tried to make a case that Wilde's poor early writing could be explained by the fact that he had not yet had a true homosexual encounter until he met Robert Ross. It wasn't until he had this relationship that he could fully realise his potential as a writer (or something like that).

The thing is though whether or not we agree with an argument or whether it is phrased well is not really the issue. We can argue against a case, and may be able to do so in better terms, but it doesn't necessarily mean that there is an exact right answer, nor should there be unless we want to reduce art to mathematics, heaven forbid.

As for the absolute dross, as in your example, we can just ignore it.

[kelby_lake]

There are an awful lot of interpretations out there that have so little connection with the text that one wonders if someone didn't attach something that was meant for a different text.

Agreed. It's like the person reads one book, loves it, sees some passing similarity and then tries to take the interpretation of one book and stick it onto another.

I think we can all agree that a good book has to be open to interpretation and not merely dictated to us. Maybe I'm just saying that as a theatre fanatic but the most interesting books are open to interpretation: Lolita, The Great Gatsby...

It's a quality of being vague, but not too vague, allowing the reader to decide.

[JBI]

Yes I know that there is a lot of pretty poor stuff around criticism wise. I remember once reading a scholarly piece on Wilde which tried to make a case that Wilde's poor early writing could be explained by the fact that he had not yet had a true homosexual encounter until he met Robert Ross. It wasn't until he had this relationship that he could fully realise his potential as a writer (or something like that).

The thing is though whether or not we agree with an argument or whether it is phrased well is not really the issue. We can argue against a case, and may be able to do so in better terms, but it doesn't necessarily mean that there is an exact right answer, nor should there be unless we want to reduce art to mathematics, heaven forbid.

As for the absolute dross, as in your example, we can just ignore it.

Was the last line directed at my botched grammar - I don't know what happened when I wrote it, but I must have been out of it (I was studying Chinese, so perhaps that is why the grammar makes absolutely no sense).

[LitNetIsGreat]

I think we can all agree that a good book has to be open to interpretation and not merely dictated to us. Maybe I'm just saying that as a theatre fanatic but the most interesting books are open to interpretation: Lolita, The Great Gatsby...

It's a quality of being vague, but not too vague, allowing the reader to decide.

Yes absolutely. The same thing goes for all the arts of course, its just that we often think of interpretation as relating to the book only, but naturally you can analyse anything (or almost anything) to the same degree.

[JBI]

Yes absolutely. The same thing goes for all the arts of course, its just that we often think of interpretation as relating to the book only, but naturally you can analyse anything (or almost anything) to the same degree.

Not vague, I would argue, but open, in the sense that certain elements give opportunity for the audience to create their own meanings and interpretations. I wouldn't, for instance, call W. C. Williams' Red Wheelbarrow vague, but more open ended. Likewise, Pound's In a Station of the Metro;

IN A STATION OF THE METRO

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

Invites the reader to form meanings, yet isn't exactly vague, since vague implies there is an intended meaning. Hamlet isn't vague, he is merely elliptical, and doesn't tell people what he thinks (and if he does, he often seems to have thought that out, as to dupe them, and the audience as well). The openness comes from the fact that there is far more going on than what is seen before the audience.

The sense of negative capability that seems referred to in your post is only one aspect - that sort of leaving things out is a method, but even if you are Zola, and try to hammer in all the details, there is still going to be an under layer to everything, which will not easily be understood, and which invites room for interpretation.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Was the last line directed at my botched grammar - I don't know what happened when I wrote it, but I must have been out of it (I was studying Chinese, so perhaps that is why the grammar makes absolutely no sense).

No, no, not at all. I merely meant the example you gave "the words chosen here are beautifully written and evoke wonderful images" I didn't even notice any error of grammar. Would you think I could possibly have it in me to be so caustic?

[PeterL]

Agreed. It's like the person reads one book, loves it, sees some passing similarity and then tries to take the interpretation of one book and stick it onto another.

I think we can all agree that a good book has to be open to interpretation and not merely dictated to us. Maybe I'm just saying that as a theatre fanatic but the most interesting books are open to interpretation: Lolita, The Great Gatsby...

It's a quality of being vague, but not too vague, allowing the reader to decide.

Yes, the good ones leave something for the reader to do. Then there are the ones where everything is laid out for the reader, if the reader can notice it; I am think particularly of The Name of the Rose, in which everything was there. There was no mystery, but other people have indicted that they didn't see it.

[Mr Endon]

You got a nice discussion going, cynara.

Interpretations are inevitable, welcome, and don't make me shirk from literature at all, even if a reading is particularly terrible - in which case I just disregard it, or read it for laughs.

Beckett famously wrote at the end of the Addenda in Watt, 'no symbols where none intended'. That sounds great, but it's probably the most disingenuous thing he ever wrote - to refute its plausibility, look no further than the novel's characters' names (Watt -> What; Mr Knott -> Not / Knot; etc).

And what a great thing that there are so many different readings; were books to be so base and meaningless as to not elicit interpretations, what would be the point of reading them, anyway?

---
EDIT: I've reread the OP and realised I didn't really answer it, my post was more based on the discussion that ensued. I have gone through that horrid experience of putting every single detail in a chapter under a microscope for a week or so. It may spoil the reading of a couple of novels then, but the idea that they keep hammering into your head in school is worth a thought: think twice before taking things at face value. An important lesson too, which I sadly ignore most spectacularly every now and then.

[JBI]

Not a maths scholar JBI?

you can be both meh and bad at the same time. I could have said, for instance, 40% meh, 40% bad, but the meh ones are often overlapped with the bad ones. Perhaps what I should have said; 80% are meh, with 40% of those being flat out bad.

[cynara]

I think what hurt Gatsby was how much time we spent on it. We were reading and analyzing minutely for about three months. I don't mean to say having a group of fresh opinions can ruin a book, or that translation ruins a book, it's more to do with finding meaning in every phrase. I can literally recite whole chapters of the novel. Instead of remembering the book in a sequence of events i can only picture it in jerky episodes.


I haven't read Farenheit 451 but I find it ironic that it is intended as a denunciation of the increasing influence of television and pop culture when, according to Wickipedia, Ray Bradbury is an author of science fiction, fantasy and horror, three of the staples of television and pop culture.

Fantasy, horror and science fiction all existed long before television. Pop culture refers to whatever is currently popular, so in older times classics like Dickens and Shakespeare would have been considered the pop culture of their era. So there's nothing wrong with the aforementioned genres or anything ironic about him writing those genres.

[JBI]

Fantasy, horror and science fiction all existed long before television. Pop culture refers to whatever is currently popular, so in older times classics like Dickens and Shakespeare would have been considered the pop culture of their era. So there's nothing wrong with the aforementioned genres or anything ironic about him writing those genres.

Kyd perhaps, but pop culture as a form never consisted of theatre - keep in mind geographically where the theaters were - generally around municipalities or people with money at least - certainly sea ballads and drinking songs would be closer to "popular" culture, and even folkmusic and dancing in their own silly way - though things were far less text-heavy, so culture as a popular medium, that is, a periodical medium, was less common perhaps than it is today. We could, for instance consider Beowulf pop culture, but I think that doesn't understand the context of its composition - if it was popular, it was popular over time, rather than over geographical space, and popular over time is rather oxymoronic - the power of the text over time is very different than popular in the sense that the most people have experienced it. Dickens clearly was a popular writer, but being removed, we read him very differently today, and hardly as a popular writer (I think people, for instance, at the academic level tend to like books like Bleak House over the more popular Christmas Carrol or Tale of Two Cities). In truth, Zola was a popular novelist, but even he has conquered time in terms of appeal, and has been appropriated into a sort of "artist" chic rather than populist voice. I know, for instance, a specialist in 19th century French Fiction (she is a leading scholar on Zola) who has read countless books that were beyond popular yet nobody today really knows them.

Popular in the sense we have it today, as a textual form rather than oral, a spatially bound rather than time-bound form originated really with the ease of production. Generally, the emergence of printing helped create a more textual society, but what really set off popular culture was the introduction of pulp into the printing world. Instead of loaning libraries controlling the distribution of texts (which around 1800 would go for 300$ a book in today money, often more if the book had many volumes). Keep in mind also, that literacy was also a relatively new phenomenon. Popular culture, in reference to texts ultimately is a second half of the twentieth century phenomenon, unless you count bourgeois romance reading girls as the "mass market".

[LitNetIsGreat]

I think what hurt Gatsby was how much time we spent on it. We were reading and analyzing minutely for about three months. I don't mean to say having a group of fresh opinions can ruin a book, or that translation ruins a book, it's more to do with finding meaning in every phrase. I can literally recite whole chapters of the novel. Instead of remembering the book in a sequence of events i can only picture it in jerky episodes.


I don't know, it sounds pretty cool to me, the fact that you can recite whole chapters of the novel is quite an impressive result you have to admit. You don't have to hold on to all the possible ways of reading particular lines in the close readings you did, you can still stand back and enjoy it for what it is, same as I can still read Little Red Riding Hood to my kids and not worry too much about its sexual signification!

[curlyqlink]

No, I can honestly say I have never had a book ruined for me by thinking about it too much.

Some books don't much stand up to being thought about... but those are generally books I haven't much enjoyed reading in the first place.

As for analysis, some analysis I find irksome because I don't agree with it.

Some analysis (like some anything else) can be wrong-headed; this is no more a reason to condemn analysis than the fact that some science has turned out to be wrong is a reason to abandon science.

[prendrelemick]

In the field of literature, there are many analyses that need interpretation.

[kelby_lake]

In the field of literature, there are many analyses that need interpretation.

Interpreting the interpretations is quite interesting :)

[Jozanny]

Oh come on. Hermeneutics is not exactly a science, though you might never guess from New Critics, as practiced in the late 20th century through today. I'd rather an extended and insightful discussion than opinions trussed up in stock phrases. As nice as it is that a large group of readers can get together in a community like this one, a quick perusal of the May discussion of The Maltese Falcon shows that a high percentage of the participants didn't post much in the way of an analysis, good, bad, insightful, or otherwise.

Now, Hammett isn't Borges, but I can imagine that Borges owes much to Hammett's trump cards, and there is something worth gleaning even from commercially driven genres, especially when they become classics, but the fastest way to kill cultural appreciation is to express things like this:

It sucks.
I like it.
Didn't do much for me.

That right there contributes to the devolution of the human animal, rather than improves upon the quality of insight and ability.

Now, I agree, things can get nonsensical. Jed Perl despises the artist Francis Bacon, and says Bacon isn't a painter even though Bacon obviously offers canvas and representational modes which offer the viewer a certain degree of brutalism. Me? Despite Goya, I don't see what all the fuss is about. Abstract expressionism, Impressionism, Picasso, Warhol, these traditions have long chucked pictorial accuracy, so far be it for me to know to a certainty that Bacon is an empty shell, and would cause luke to recoil in horror--but this points to the problem of the art world being three or four times removed from a non-afficionado like myself. I *know* a little here and there, had some art history, but I don't have the deceased Updike's Harvard erudition to be able to practice as an art critic, and few people outside of practitioners like luke can function in that role, but most of us should be able to assess narrative and other arts beyond

I like it or I hate it

and I am sure I could do that looking at Bacon even in near ignorance as to why he is Barry Manilow rather than a real recording artist, like Frank Sinatra, which is another way of saying I disagree with Perl even though I lack his expertise. One cannot say Barry isn't a musician and a singer, even if one can point to what makes him a terribly bad one.

[stlukesguild]

Jed Perl... I can't think of a more conservative idiot as critic since the New Republic's own Hilton Kramer. An iconic figure like Francis Bacon dismissed as the worst painter of the 20th century and another, Robert Rauschenberg brushed away with a wave of the hand: "As for his art, it stank in the 1950s, and it doesn't look any better today." I'll only give him a slight benefit of the doubt because he was quite strong in his responses to the recent exhibition of my own beloved, Pierre Bonnard. Still... I do get where you are coming from in that certain criticisms are indeed less than satisfactory. To state "I like it" or "I hate it" may be fine if backed up with some logical reasons as to why. All criticism comes down to personal opinion at a certain level, albeit some opinions are better than others. "Statements like "It sucks" or "The greatest writer since Shakespeare" or "The worst painter of the 20thy century" are so meaningless that they beg no response other than a bemused smirk.

Jozy... you again paint me as far too much of the conservative in artistic matters. Perhaps to a certain extent I am a classicist... certainly I am deeply rooted in the history of art... but as such I am more than aware that in the vast majority of instances it is those who are so deeply rooted that are the greatest innovators (whether we speak of Michelangelo, Rubens, Ingres, Picasso, Matisse, or Anselm Kiefer) and not the oblivious iconoclasts. Picasso, for example, could question and challenge the very foundations of Western painting so well because he knew it like the back of his hand. Pollack, on the other hand, built off his immediate predecessors and peers and eventually arrived at something new, but seen within the larger context of art history he is quite limited in his range, his output of truly great paintings in quite small, and his importance is rather diminutive in comparison with an artist such as Paul Klee... let alone Picasso.

Personally (surprise, surprise, Jozie) I find Francis Bacon to be an incredibly powerful painter. Perl argues that Bacon embraces all the wrong directions and elements in art. Nothing could be more ridiculous. The very notion of a monolithic development of art is dead... and always was wrong. Yes, Schoenberg, and Weber, and Berg were far more experimental than Puccini, Rachmaninoff, and Delius... but somehow I suspect that the latter composers may just outlast the former. Innovation and fracturing the art of one's predecessors isn't the sole measure of artistic merit.

A good many of my artist friends share a similar feeling that the status of Abstract Expressionism was far overstated (thanks especially to the hyperbolic criticism of Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg)... or rather that it was overstated to the exclusion of artists who did not follow in the same mold. We have come to expect that a number of European masters including Francis Bacon, Jean Dubuffet, Alberto Giacometti, Lucian Freud, and Giorgio Morandi way prove in the long run to have been just as important... if not more-so. Indeed, considering the strong Post-Modern predilection for a pre-Modernist "realism" in painting, one needs to look quite hard for heirs of Abstract Expressionism and a great deal of Modernist Expressionism and Abstraction as a whole.

Perhaps the major problem faced by each of these artists (outside of the fact that they were not working in New York) is that they did not follow in the footsteps of the New York School and they largely had little of no interest in what the New York School was doing or what the dictates of the all-powerful Clement Greenberg were. When Greenberg said (to paraphrase) "painting is about flattening the picture plane, eliminating the subject and the artist's hand" later filed painters such as Kenneth Noland, Gene Davis, and Helen Frankenthaler (who just happened to be sleeping with Robert Motherwell... and then Greenberg) said "Yes sir! Mr. Greenberg, sir!" Robert Rauschenberg rebelled and said "screw you, Greenberg!" and then churned out one of his in your face combines that broke every rule of Greenberg. Francis Bacon, however, I have always imagined, would have simply said "Clem who? Is he gay?":lol:

The reality is that Francis Bacon is a limited artist. He lacks the range of Picasso or Matisse. In his way his work exists in just as narrow a range as that of most of Abstract Expressionism. On the other hand, his work is clearly rooted in the work of his predecessors... but those he looks to and that which he built upon were not the same as that of the mainstream Ab-Ex. He built upon Picasso's Surrealist period distortions of the figure, a certain Japanese minimalism of compositional design (Bacon began as a designer), Matisse's color sense, the manipulation of paint and tonalism of Soutine, Van Gogh and Baroque masters such as Rembrandt and especially Velasquez, and perhaps more than anything... photography and film. Where earlier artists such Degas, Bonnard, etc... may have gained something from the compositional ideas of photography, Bacon may have been one of the first to recognize that there were images in film and photography that were as iconic and essential to 20th century culture as that of any painting: the scene on the steps from Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin, Hitler ranting an Nuremberg, Muybridge's studies of human movement, etc... Bacon drew from such disparate sources... images of the realities and horrors of 20th century life (both personal and public) and then he staged these within the highly aestheticized context of the religious icon and altarpiece. The resulting works are among some of the most resonant paintings of the latter 20th century:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2430/3603271375_c3cdf48985_o.jpg

[higley]

Fantasy, horror and science fiction all existed long before television. Pop culture refers to whatever is currently popular, so in older times classics like Dickens and Shakespeare would have been considered the pop culture of their era. So there's nothing wrong with the aforementioned genres or anything ironic about him writing those genres.

Exactly. I've never really considered Bradbury to be "just" a sci fi writer, but say rather that he writes about the human condition in the hypothetical context of a futuristic time, I really think he can't be pinned down to fantasy for its own sake--although as cynara says, those predated television anyway.

[Jozanny]

But luke, what I am saying is I don't even know how to find the assurance to agree or disagree. There was some interesting pushback against Perl, and without knowing much, I do think he took it over the top. I see Carivaggio as a very powerful artist, after all, even if Perl singles him out as an archetype to be blamed. It is the experience transmuted which creates great work.

I'd like to see a Bacon exhibit one day. Perl raises his voice so much that I think I might try to judge for myself.

[MorpheusSandman]

Stanley Kubrick once said something about film that I've always found applicable to all the arts: "film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later."

For me, it's essential to enjoy a work passionately first, and not attempt to grasp it all intellectually. Allowing it to provoke reactionary emotions and your own intuition of knowing there's more there but not being able to completely discern it. In this sense, one can look at art as like a relationship; the early part is all hot and passionate romance. The analysis and interpretation is where one turns the intangible to the tangible, the intuitively sensed to the consciously grasped. If a work still holds up to this and maintains its greatness then it's probably a truly great work of art. This would be like marriage and knowing someone for many years after the passion is worn off; if it lasts, it's probably real.

There are a couple of works I've spent years studying in depth (two would be 2001: A Space Odyssey and Neon Genesis Evangelion). In both cases I began by passionately loving them and, in the case of NGE, being profoundly effected by my first viewing. But all of the analysis, discussion, and "solving" of the mysteries gave me a greater appreciation for just how impressive both were. My blind passion turned into a kind of deeper, '20/20' appreciation for what the works accomplished and WHY I was so effected.

I do recall a quote from a professor of Shakespeare who said that he'd give back all of his knowledge of Romeo & Juliet if he could go back and experience for the first time. In a way, I understand the sentiment. There's nothing that can replace that sense of passion one gets from encountering a truly great and personally affecting work or artist for the first time. I just look at all the other stuff as a logical next step. Because passion must eventually wear off; and that's where we find out if something has lasting value.

[stlukesguild]

Jozie... There's a wonderful diptych in the Philadelphia museum by Rogier Van der Weyden that has always reminded me of Bacon:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3350/3604723037_b5f8dc984a_o.jpg

The reddish area is far more orangish... a cadmium red light hue... from what I remember... so that it fairly well screams. Like Bacon the painting merges the horror (of the act of a crucifixion) and dramatic realism with an extreme artifice: not only is the drama taking place within a shallow space that suggests a stage set... something out of Beckett's Endgame... but there is an absolute artfulness in the placement... the flow of the draperies and movement of the bodies are artfully thought out. The end result is rather like the horrible scenes of the Inferno as they unfold in the controlled structure's of Dante's terza rima or Baudelaire's nightmarish scenes presently within perfectly realized sonnets. There is this frisson that results from the contrast between the content and form that Bacon also achieves in his strongest works. Perl's criticism of Bacon's lack of structure immediately leads me to think that he hasn't the least concept of formal structure in art. Painters, unfortunately, have long been at the mercy of critics... who as writers are masters of words... but not necessarily visual form. I had to laugh upon reading this review with an artist friend and admit that perl was good at what he did. His quoting Lisa Yuskavage, George Condo, and John Currin... three of the worst contemporary schlock artists... perfectly undermined Bacon, who is nothing like these latter painters. I have little doubt that much of the negative direction taken in the visual arts is owed to criticism that focuses more upon elements that can be readily explored in words: subject matter, narrative, socio-political ramifications, philosophical underpinnings... as opposed to color, touch, rhythm, harmony, and other essentially visual elements.

[Jozanny]

I may have seen this luke, though it has been awhile since I've been to old stodgy--but to my point--overkill helps. I have neither Perl's expertise, nor yours, but I have learned, and when it comes to art, I do not mind proclaiming some stupidity.

I think, however, that we'll always be negotiating a balance between critical scholarship and lay accessibility.

If I can turn the tables on the OP's plaint, the closest problem I have to ruin by interpretation is when theater directors attempt absolute fidelity to Shakespeare. (Not a big fan of Originalism here, hint hint.)

I feel that for Shakespeare to thrive, adaptation, variation, and textual study and criticism is essential--although I have to handicap that with the caveat that, I have never seen some of the plays which interest me most in terms of producing them, Measure for Measure, among others.

[kelby_lake]

Stanley Kubrick once said something about film that I've always found applicable to all the arts: "film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later."

For me, it's essential to enjoy a work passionately first, and not attempt to grasp it all intellectually. Allowing it to provoke reactionary emotions and your own intuition of knowing there's more there but not being able to completely discern it. In this sense, one can look at art as like a relationship; the early part is all hot and passionate romance. The analysis and interpretation is where one turns the intangible to the tangible, the intuitively sensed to the consciously grasped. If a work still holds up to this and maintains its greatness then it's probably a truly great work of art. This would be like marriage and knowing someone for many years after the passion is worn off; if it lasts, it's probably real.

There are a couple of works I've spent years studying in depth (two would be 2001: A Space Odyssey and Neon Genesis Evangelion). In both cases I began by passionately loving them and, in the case of NGE, being profoundly effected by my first viewing. But all of the analysis, discussion, and "solving" of the mysteries gave me a greater appreciation for just how impressive both were. My blind passion turned into a kind of deeper, '20/20' appreciation for what the works accomplished and WHY I was so effected.

I do recall a quote from a professor of Shakespeare who said that he'd give back all of his knowledge of Romeo & Juliet if he could go back and experience for the first time. In a way, I understand the sentiment. There's nothing that can replace that sense of passion one gets from encountering a truly great and personally affecting work or artist for the first time. I just look at all the other stuff as a logical next step. Because passion must eventually wear off; and that's where we find out if something has lasting value.

Agree, agree!

The mood one I only really started to notice when we did a drama performance and we had a long piece of music playing in the background- the rhythm of the music and the rhythm of the piece clashed.

[Big Al]

This is an interesting topic for me because I recently re-read a favorite of mine, Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis," and I worked my way through (most of) the critical essays contained the the volume I purchased (the Norton Critical Edition). I found some of the interpretations fascinating, for instance one essay which discussed the influence of Jewish myths and folktales on "The Metamorphosis," and how it could be viewed as a modernized exploration of the themes of traditional Yiddish writings. The prose was clear, lucid, well-supported with excerpts from several Jewish literary works, and the central thesis was solid and perfectly comprehensible. However, many of the other essays (actually, all the others in varying degrees) put forth confusing, abstract theories about the story and did so in scattered, verbose writing which gave the impression that the minds of the authors were constantly wandering as they tried to scrape together some kind of definite thesis.

In other words, I would assert that the right kind of interpretations and criticisms can be an immense benefit both to one's understanding and appreciation of the text in question, but the wrong ones can be frustrating excercies in futility which make you simply want to throw the book out the window and let it drop where it may (although my experiences with "bad" literary criticism have never diminished my love of a narrative, but merely the author of the criticism, if indeed I had any respect for him or her in the first place).

[mono]

I won't go so far as to suggest there are no "wrong" interpretations, however.Well maybe not "no" wrong interpretations, but as long as a fair interpretation is derived from the text itself, strictly speaking, there can be relatively few "wrong" readings.
I definitely would suggest that entirely wrong interpretations exist - ones waaaaay 'left field,' so to speak. Neely said it well that as long as they seem 'fair' interpretations, then it makes a reader's interpretation a bit more accurate, but I have still read some well-educated, well-written interpretations that . . . well, just sucked, though I know I do not always seem correct myself.
What makes an interpretation objectively (ugh, I hate using that word) correct or incorrect relies upon the author(s) herself/himself/themselves. Unfortunately, an author distributing a work to the masses, people s/he will never encounter nor have the ability to explain her/himself, bears the risk of subjecting the literary work to wrong interpretation; if the author has already died, sometimes enough commentary, interviews, documentation, and such exist for some readers to refer to for a more educated interpretation - disasters and sins to the literary arts, however, still exist. Interpreting takes practice, nonetheless, and no flawless expert exists, likely not even scholars who study Finnegans Wake for longer than Joyce took to write the book (some 17 years, if I remember correctly), and I can picture the man emitting a loud Irish guffaw in his grave every time someone opens the front cover of the 'novel.'
For those deceased authors, their posthumous works, works written anonymously, or works written by practically invisible authors (ahem, Salinger), they placed their slabs of paper at the risk of wrong interpretations the moment the first print whisked off the warm presses, including to literature instructors, educated scholars, and first-time readers. Some books receive more victimization than others, which can make them quite a bit more widely read, even if they get publicly banned, such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Lady Chatterly's Lover, The Bible (and most religious texts, for that matter), and most everything by writers mentioned in my previous post; only Mark Twain, D.H. Lawrence, and individuals allegedly 'inspired' can objectively critique interpretations to call them 'right,' 'wrong,' or 'on the right/wrong track.' In this case, I agree with JBI's estimated overlapping percentages, despite how extreme they sound:

I'd say 80% of academic readings are meh, 40% bad, and 95% of unscholarly readings are pretty mediocre, in terms of accuracy.
Regardless of what interpretations prove correct or incorrect, even worse, sometimes the incorrect interpretations can take hold and control the fate of that book. Lawrence's Lady Chatterly's Lover, and most of his other novels, regardless, got banned in most countries; in its time, it only received publication in Italy, yet got distributed everywhere. Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remains banned in the majority of public schools, at least in the U.S., due to its 'racial slurs,' though Twain, a 19th-century American, advocated strongly for the abolition of slavery in his day. These books not only get ruined by interpretation, but quite literally banned from further interpretation. :rolleyes:

I recently re-read a favorite of mine, Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis," and I worked my way through (most of) the critical essays contained the the volume I purchased (the Norton Critical Edition). I found some of the interpretations fascinating, for instance one essay which discussed the influence of Jewish myths and folktales on "The Metamorphosis," and how it could be viewed as a modernized exploration of the themes of traditional Yiddish writings.
Interesting, Big Al - I will have to do a bit of searching for that. It sounds a bit extreme, but fascinating, nonetheless. :)

[Lokasenna]

Wrong political subtext? How is that possible? An author writes always in th right context, never mind what the reader thinks...

Can you actually clarify that?

Whoops... forgot about this thread...

I think you've misread 'strong' for 'wrong' in my post! I could see what my lecturer was driving at (i.e, its not an incorrect interpretation), but I just feel that that way of observing the poem actually detracted from it.

[LitNetIsGreat]

What makes an interpretation objectively (ugh, I hate using that word) correct or incorrect relies upon the author(s) herself/himself/themselves. Unfortunately, an author distributing a work to the masses, people s/he will never encounter nor have the ability to explain her/himself, bears the risk of subjecting the literary work to wrong interpretation; if the author has already died, sometimes enough commentary, interviews, documentation, and such exist for some readers to refer to for a more educated interpretation - disasters and sins to the literary arts, however, still exist. Interpreting takes practice, nonetheless, and no flawless expert exists, likely not even scholars who study Finnegans Wake for longer than Joyce took to write the book (some 17 years, if I remember correctly), and I can picture the man emitting a loud Irish guffaw in his grave every time someone opens the front cover of the 'novel.'
For those deceased authors, their posthumous works, works written anonymously, or works written by practically invisible authors (ahem, Salinger), they placed their slabs of paper at the risk of wrong interpretations the moment the first print whisked off the warm presses, including to literature instructors, educated scholars, and first-time readers. Some books receive more victimization than others, which can make them quite a bit more widely read, even if they get publicly banned, such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Lady Chatterly's Lover, The Bible (and most religious texts, for that matter), and most everything by writers mentioned in my previous post; only Mark Twain, D.H. Lawrence, and individuals allegedly 'inspired' can objectively critique interpretations to call them 'right,' 'wrong,' or 'on the right/wrong track.' In this case, I agree with JBI's estimated overlapping percentages, despite how extreme they sound:

All writers are already dead!

You might find it extremely insightful if you read the short essay by Roland Barthes "The Death of the Author". In this essay Barthes calls into question the very nature of interpretation and claims (in short) that all authors are dead upon the point of publication. Roughly what he meant by this is that the author is no better at interpreting his/her own work than a reader, upon publication the author just becomes another reader like anybody else with no more claim over the text than you or I.

With this in mind it matters little, if at all, what an author says about their own work in determining an interpretation according to Barthes, which I strongly subscribe to. This doesn't mean that you can't learn from the context of the author, you can, but the author can't have complete control over their own work, because that's impossible. You could also tie in the ideas of Freud quite well into this argument, there are other forces at question, much more things going on below the surface of the mind to tie a text down to any particular reading.

So it is impossible as you say above for the author to explain himself/herself because the author has little to say to us. When J.K. (ahem) Rowling said that Dumblebore was gay after the end of the HP series, that is just one possible interpretation like any other, and holds no real value at all. J.K Rowling is dead!

[kiki1982]

@Lokasenna:

Oh, my God! :eek: That's shocking such a misread!

I can see what you mean now...

Next time, I'll just spend a bit more time on reading... (Who knows what I misread in my books then...;))

[mono]

All writers are already dead!

You might find it extremely insightful if you read the short essay by Roland Barthes "The Death of the Author". In this essay Barthes calls into question the very nature of interpretation and claims (in short) that all authors are dead upon the point of publication. Roughly what he meant by this is that the author is no better at interpreting his/her own work than a reader, upon publication the author just becomes another reader like anybody else with no more claim over the text than you or I.

With this in mind it matters little, if at all, what an author says about their own work in determining an interpretation according to Barthes, which I strongly subscribe to. This doesn't mean that you can't learn from the context of the author, you can, but the author can't have complete control over their own work, because that's impossible. You could also tie in the ideas of Freud quite well into this argument, there are other forces at question, much more things going on below the surface of the mind to tie a text down to any particular reading.

So it is impossible as you say above for the author to explain himself/herself because the author has little to say to us. When J.K. (ahem) Rowling said that Dumblebore was gay after the end of the HP series, that is just one possible interpretation like any other, and holds no real value at all. J.K Rowling is dead!
Interesting, thanks. I can see this side of the argument, and will definitely look into the essay you suggested to perhaps sway me a bit more.
Just like anyone in any occupation, a lot of people change their minds and opinions on many subjects. Walt Whitman published numerous editions of his poetry because he "wasn't satisfied with the previous," George Berkeley could have practically composed three more dialogues to his Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, because his opinions kept changing, and Immanuel Kant did the same occasionally with his ethical philosophy works, explaining why we have Groundwork for the Metaphysic of Morals and Metaphysic of Morals.
Saying "all writers are dead" sounds a bit extreme, but, indeed, people change their minds and can eventually feel foreign to their own previous ideas, thus giving them not much of an advantage in interpreting his/her own former works; undoubtedly, memory would persist, however, as to what this and that meant in "X" novel or "Y" poem. Even with my own writings, I have gone back and read things written years ago, and felt like someone else had written it, not only because of its quality, but of its ideas; I consider myself no Keats, but I can still interpret my own works all the same, based upon my memory, yet I have otherwise detached myself.

[Jozanny]

When I am actually dead, that is one thing, but all living authors want to control, at least, those who can, is promotion and sales. They really don't care if some reviewer has a hissy fit, or "sees" what the author themselves missed, or says that x isn't actually an erotic fantasy as opposed to a fascist trope.

When I wrote this (http://www.raggededgemagazine.com/fiction/marinelli0504.html#bio) I knew what I was writing it for; it was a fantasy reunification of a ruptured relationship which in actual fact had been severely damaged thanks to cutting it too close in email. Even the best literary critics would need the real biographical detail to get the full extent of the irony going on in this piece; without it they might say X, or Y, but without the real truth they'd never know what a dark joke I was simply playing on myself.

Not that I do not respect Barthes, but there are facts which shape the motive of what an author does. Scholarly investigations can get some of it, never all of it, and plugging in your own analysis is only on the basis of the finished product, and why would I want my readers to have the biographical impetus? If they appreciate the end product, I may feel gratified; if they don't, I cannot please everyone, and have already moved on to my next job.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Interesting, thanks. I can see this side of the argument, and will definitely look into the essay you suggested to perhaps sway me a bit more.

Cool, yes I have found Barthes very useful, though some of his stuff doesn't really seem worth the effort, though that essay undoubtedly is.


Saying "all writers are dead" sounds a bit extreme, but, indeed, people change their minds and can eventually feel foreign to their own previous ideas, thus giving them not much of an advantage in interpreting his/her own former works; undoubtedly, memory would persist, however, as to what this and that meant in "X" novel or "Y" poem.

It's not really about memory though. You could write a piece tonight and be immediately "dead" when you have finished it. What the author thinks or feels has almost no impact upon the text at all according to Barthes. Your characters take on different meaning according to who has read them and each one will be different because we are all different.

You could write "the cat sat on the mat" and I could picture a big fat black cat on a bright orange mat, the fact that you intended the mat to be red has no bearing upon my image at all unless your next sentence states that the mat is red. If you see what I mean?

Whether you look back or leave biographical information behind upon the actual nature of the mat or the shape of the cat means absolutely nothing to me, the cat has already been immortalised in verse and I have my own picture in my head.

Take that a stage further and produce a 500 page novel and trying to tie that down to a fixed meaning becomes absolutely absurd. If we can't agree on a mat or a cat in six words how the hell are we going to agree on a 500 page novel?


Not that I do not respect Barthes, but there are facts which shape the motive of what an author does. Scholarly investigations can get some of it, never all of it, and plugging in your own analysis is only on the basis of the finished product

Yes there are a lot of things which make up the authors mind and what maybe motivates the author but you have put your paint on this canvas and it is not yours anymore. It doesn’t matter what you thought or intended for the characters in your short sketch because they are no longer your creations they take on a life of their own. This would probably be Bathes position anyway, it is certainly mine through Bathes ideas anyway, my own interpretation of the interpretation?

[MorpheusSandman]

You might find it extremely insightful if you read the short essay by Roland Barthes "The Death of the Author"...I know of the principle of the essay even though I've never read it. It's a very post-modern idea though, isn't it? I mean, the author's intent was for the longest time respected as being the God behind the creation; interpretation was all about figuring out precisely what they meant. Of course, the more abstract a work becomes the more "filling in the holes" interpretation it requires. One great quote that sums this up is "an author has a right to define what they intended, but not what they created"; meaning that the two aren't always one in the same. There are obviously always unconscious elements at work under the surface. However, I think the "death of the author" notion takes things a bit too far and has a tendency to give people too much liberty to subjectively interpret and ignore intention. This usually just has a habit of either obscuring relevant or inventing irrelevant meaning.

[JBI]

Meh, Barthes is read often, and, from what I understand, almost always misunderstood. What he really was arguing about, generally throughout his career, was the reaction to his style in critical works (notably his work on Balzac and Racine) where he radically tried to write about topics essentially unrelated to the study of those texts. Everything, including his work on Balzac seems preoccupied with this notion of structures and semiology that he planted into the works for critical purposes. The death of the author is more like saying The Birth of the Critic. By delegitimizing the role of the author, Barthes essentially paves the way for fancy language, and his own role. He lowers Racine, and raises Barthes, discredits Balzac, and credits his interpretation.

The notion makes sense, but it has been employed as an abuse to build one's own argument. If we are to delegitamize a reading based on the author's perspective, ultimately, the reading of the critic is delegitamized in the process, as also being just one, limited reading. In the end, the study of literature ultimately loses its purpose, as the death of the author (and his society as a second thought) means the death of a context and purpose, and the birth of open interpretation, which is, in a sense, dominated by mental masturbation, and fancy language.

By removing the personal, the form of expression and the role of the author also changes. This isn't too significant in terms of novels, as good ones tend to shy away from pure didacticism, but in terms of poetry, it really complicates things, and in terms of modes of expression (I think here mostly from Female writers and minority writers) it really discredits the importance of a framework. One cannot, for instance, really read a poet like Lowell without looking somewhat at their framework. Likewise, the more personal of poets, the ones who engage their readers openly, as apposed to the ones who use the medium as the message, tend to be shoved aside. A personal expression becomes either no expression at all, or a metaphor for an expression for a large group, or for humanity as a whole, the role of the artist is diminished, and again, the value of art is essentially reduced to what can satisfy the most jargonic writing.


I like Barthes, don't get me wrong, but it seems that this concept of death of the author is very limited, and works only to a certain degree, and for certain texts and traditions. Poetry tends to suffer greatly, whereas Drama I would argue fairs the best against such reading (as the Drama itself is designed to allow the actors room to create characters, rather than having everything controlled by a narrator, or voice). Certainly novels seem to be easily read in this light, but on the whole, that is because the novel is a form built upon narration, and doesn't have implied narration, rather a world of its own created by the narration of the text. In reading a novel, with the exception of a select few (arguably), all seem to be easily read without much background on the author or their world. Try reading Earle Birney like that, or Pablo Neruda, and then you run into certain problems.

[JCamilo]

Barthes is dead. That must explain everything.

Anyways the focus of guys like Barthes, Foucault, Derrida on aspects others than the creator are only because previously the criticism was heavily focused on this creator and the other aspects of the literary experience are left behind. Barthes was not the first to touch the subject and wont be the last since it is just true. It will only depends what aspect of a text you want to approach.

[Jozanny]

JBI has posted more eloquently on the schematic Chinese box trap Barthes would place us in than I would have earlier, but my main objection is to narrative text as fossil. Writing is a living process; publishing opens additional relationships, from readers to text, critics from text to readers.

To me, a poet like Cavafy isn't dead--not that I am a *seedy* homosexual prowling like an urban city rat in Egypt--but Cavafy can speak to me exactly because I am myself an outrage of suffering prowling like an urban city rat, formed out of the limitations of Old World Rome as much as Cavafy saw through the proposition of Hellenistic enlightenment. Language, properly built upon itself, continues history and returns us to it, a living dynamic as opposed to something entombed which insists upon our high priests serving as conduits.

As a practical matter, what I was trying to point out was a writer in progress has no use for Barthes methodology here. Publishing is difficult enough, let alone doing a good job with the material published. I hate nearly everything I have published, which is another way of saying I am still working with the text, whether or not I actually revise or rewrite.

[JCamilo]

To Barthes the text is also a living thing, just like writing is a living thing, reading is a living thing. The Author is dead is just a slogan for him to get the uproar, the guy focus is the relationship between author -text - reader, so you could claim he is useless for creation process, altough I would say many authors are often trying to manipulate the relation between text and reader, so reckonizing the power of the reader may change how one may write or not...

[LitNetIsGreat]

I know of the principle of the essay even though I've never read it. It's a very post-modern idea though, isn't it? I mean, the author's intent was for the longest time respected as being the God behind the creation; interpretation was all about figuring out precisely what they meant. Of course, the more abstract a work becomes the more "filling in the holes" interpretation it requires. One great quote that sums this up is "an author has a right to define what they intended, but not what they created"; meaning that the two aren't always one in the same. There are obviously always unconscious elements at work under the surface. However, I think the "death of the author" notion takes things a bit too far and has a tendency to give people too much liberty to subjectively interpret and ignore intention. This usually just has a habit of either obscuring relevant or inventing irrelevant meaning.

Yes I would agree with most of that and I like the quotation and the idea of unconscious elements at work under the surface. Though your last point which is also what JBI was saying in a way I don't fully support:


The notion makes sense, but it has been employed as an abuse to build one's own argument. If we are to delegitamize a reading based on the author's perspective, ultimately, the reading of the critic is delegitamized in the process, as also being just one, limited reading. In the end, the study of literature ultimately loses its purpose, as the death of the author (and his society as a second thought) means the death of a context and purpose, and the birth of open interpretation, which is, in a sense, dominated by mental masturbation, and fancy language.

I don’t really agree here, I don’t see how literature loses its purpose in light of the ideas of Barthes and others arguing from a similar perspective. The art is opened up for all to find meaning, and it is true that some can abuse that potential and push that too far, but that is the fault of the would-be critic, and not of Barthes or the art itself. The art is still as ever complex or as simple as it always has been.

Don't get me wrong I'm not championing Barthes to the extreme, reading around context and even biographical information is still important (and often very interesting to boot) but I personally completely shy away from biographical interpretations of texts, for if anything that does reduce the art dramatically.


...but my main objection is to narrative text as fossil.
As a practical matter, what I was trying to point out was a writer in progress has no use for Barthes methodology here. Publishing is difficult enough, let alone doing a good job with the material published. I hate nearly everything I have published, which is another way of saying I am still working with the text, whether or not I actually revise or rewrite.

But once you have published it and it is in the hands of the reader that's it. It might still be spinning around in your head driving you crazy but that doesn't really affect the reader's position or interpretation or enjoyment of it. You can't come running after them with a footnote like Miss Rowling did with Dumbledore.

[MorpheusSandman]

The art is opened up for all to find meaning, and it is true that some can abuse that potential and push that too far, but that is the fault of the would-be critic, and not of Barthes or the art itself.I think the problem becomes determining validity both on objective and subjective scales and knowing when to say 'this has gone too far'. If we look at art as a form of communication, the concept and reason for its existence is mostly invalidated if we simply hear, see, and understand what we want with no care of the intent or context of what's said, shown, etc. e.g., if I say "I want a hamburger for lunch" and someone hearing me says "Yes... how profound. I see how your statement is relevant to the starving people in the world and all of the gluttonous people in the Western world who ignore their suffering"... well, I don't think I have to explain how wrong this is. The same applies to art, and when it reaches this level it's gone too far. As JBI I said, I think it's entirely work dependent; how much does the author/artist invite subjective interpretation? Can subjective interpretation have relevancy to anyone but the person? Does it actually offer any insight into the work, or is it stripping the work to a skeleton and applying the flesh as it sees fit?

[mono]

The art is opened up for all to find meaning, and it is true that some can abuse that potential and push that too far, but that is the fault of the would-be critic, and not of Barthes or the art itself.I think the problem becomes determining validity both on objective and subjective scales and knowing when to say 'this has gone too far'. If we look at art as a form of communication, the concept and reason for its existence is mostly invalidated if we simply hear, see, and understand what we want with no care of the intent or context of what's said, shown, etc. e.g., if I say "I want a hamburger for lunch" and someone hearing me says "Yes... how profound. I see how your statement is relevant to the starving people in the world and all of the gluttonous people in the Western world who ignore their suffering"... well, I don't think I have to explain how wrong this is. The same applies to art, and when it reaches this level it's gone too far. As JBI I said, I think it's entirely work dependent; how much does the author/artist invite subjective interpretation? Can subjective interpretation have relevancy to anyone but the person? Does it actually offer any insight into the work, or is it stripping the work to a skeleton and applying the flesh as it sees fit?
Again, I have to do a bit more research on Barthes to really discuss him fully, but on a subjective level (as opposed to objective, meaning depending on the author), relying solely upon the reader, I think the interpretation can sometimes rely more upon the reader's knowledge, previous experiences, vocabulary, and literacy according to [blank] genre of literature than the piece of literary art itself. One will twist words with every sinew and extent of strength, or lack thereof, to make sense of something, and it occurs daily, particularly with philosophical, poetic, and religious texts - did Marx clearly foresee what would come out of his political philosophy, did Homer truly intend so many homoerotic themes in his epic poetry, did the allegedly 'inspired' 12 apostles really think individuals like Calvin or Hubbard could rise to such power?
In these cases, not only will individuals of all abilities, intelligence, and virtues (highschool students to world leaders) interpret things according to their understanding, but also sometimes for the benefit of themselves, because when individuals cite such convincing and seemingly powerful texts as Marx, Homer, or The Bible, people listen more than if someone cited less popular and sometimes less abstract texts, like Montesquieu, Turèll, or Shintoism, though these writers and texts have also likely gotten victimized at least one time or another. This seems the fault of the word more than anything else; give someone the number 15, and s/he thinks of the number 15, but give someone a word, and multiple definitions, synonyms, and antonyms exist to manipulate it.

[Jozanny]

But once you have published it and it is in the hands of the reader that's it. It might still be spinning around in your head driving you crazy but that doesn't really affect the reader's position or interpretation or enjoyment of it. You can't come running after them with a footnote like Miss Rowling did with Dumbledore.

I don't think it is that distinct Neely, with apologies. Shakespeare created a great many of his plays by adapting Hollingsworth's prose histories, yet Hollingsworth doesn't survive beyond Shakespeareans themselves, and really isn't "in the hands of the reader". There are many steps between writer and finished product. You may not be aware of all the middlemen and legalese, but it exists. And when I am dead my estate will control my original source material for a long time--and even public domain doesn't mean readers then have unfettered control over the narrative.

I don't think authors die. People do; sometimes languages do too, but language is the closest thing there is to immortality, and as such, is always dynamic.

[spotty]

As someone who is terrible at catching symbols and metaphors and certainly 'deeper meanings', I have worked long and hard to 'let go' of my guilt about not understanding a book as fully as it might be understood. Reading interpretations sometimes made me angry at myself for not catching things that in hindsight seem so obvious.
The truth for me is though, that I love going with my own personal impressions of a book. Its a unique and special kind of relationship between myself and the text.
Take 'Heart of Darkness'. I have read that book 10 times at least. The thing about it I still love most, is the atmosphere. I can feel the jungle. I FEEL what its like going down that river.
Heck, I have no idea what Kurtz represents in any literal or symbolic fashion.
I get what he is, I think, which to me is the 'height of man' that still ultimately is capable of his dark 'desires' once stripped of civilization's control.
THere are probably tons of other buried meanings in the book, but I can't afford to get bogged down by them. Learning them will/would change the book for me into something else.

Bottom line, I don't care if my interpretations are wrong or lacking. I get off on reading Heart of Darkness period. Even if it might be for entirely the wrong reasons, or even if I completely miss the point of the book.

There dagnabbit! I said it. :lol:

[varnish7]

Personally, I've never had too much use for overanalyzing a book. AFAIC, if an author is writing a novel because he wants to make some sort of statement, that statement is going to be fairly obvious. I realize that in some places and times, a writer couldn't just say straight out that the church or the government was corrupt or anything like that with impunity. However, it seems like they would try to make their point fairly obvious.

I just don't like it when someone will twist every single word to uncover some hidden meaning to a novel. In high school, we read Grapes of Wrath, and apparently the minister or whoever he was is a "Christ" figure because his initials were "J.C." and he ended up getting killed. Maybe Steinbeck really intended it that way, but I find it hard to believe that anyone would actually do that on purpose.

Another thing I didn't like is when we were studying Shakespeare in high school and college. The teacher once spent an entire class going over the first scene of Hamlet where the guards are changing shifts and saying "hi" to each other. She kept interrupting every other line for analysis. It just really distracted from the play. I mean, just because it's Shakespeare doesn't mean that every line has to have a deep profound meaning. Weren't Shakespeare's plays aimed at the illiterate masses? I mean, it's this or watching a public execution. I can understand that Shakespeare might have included some inside jokes or hidden messages or whatever. But would his plays have really strained the mental limits of someone watching or reading them when they first came out?

[LitNetIsGreat]

Personally, I've never had too much use for overanalyzing a book. AFAIC, if an author is writing a novel because he wants to make some sort of statement, that statement is going to be fairly obvious. I realize that in some places and times, a writer couldn't just say straight out that the church or the government was corrupt or anything like that with impunity. However, it seems like they would try to make their point fairly obvious.

I just don't like it when someone will twist every single word to uncover some hidden meaning to a novel. In high school, we read Grapes of Wrath, and apparently the minister or whoever he was is a "Christ" figure because his initials were "J.C." and he ended up getting killed. Maybe Steinbeck really intended it that way, but I find it hard to believe that anyone would actually do that on purpose.

Another thing I didn't like is when we were studying Shakespeare in high school and college. The teacher once spent an entire class going over the first scene of Hamlet where the guards are changing shifts and saying "hi" to each other. She kept interrupting every other line for analysis. It just really distracted from the play. I mean, just because it's Shakespeare doesn't mean that every line has to have a deep profound meaning. Weren't Shakespeare's plays aimed at the illiterate masses? I mean, it's this or watching a public execution. I can understand that Shakespeare might have included some inside jokes or hidden messages or whatever. But would his plays have really strained the mental limits of someone watching or reading them when they first came out?

With all due respect I think you are missing much of the point. The meaning doesn't lie with the author, but the reader. It is far from being about the author inserting hidden codes within a work. It is much more about the reader-critic arguing for a particular positon or series of positions within a text or texts.

If you read the thread through maybe we covered that the first time.

[JCamilo]

I think it is wrong to say the meaning lies with the reader. It also lies with the author, even because the author is also a reader, writing is a form of reading, but I will not wander so far from here.
Anyways, literature (or art) all happens inside a communicative context, so the creator do give a meaning also, now, the multiple readers are not obligated to understand or be limited by this meaning. It is necessary creation while reading, otherwise the artistic experience will be lost.
Also, we have to mention that for real using words for communication is trully impossible. We can not write exactly what we are thinking, so everything I said was blablabla...

[varnish7]

With all due respect I think you are missing much of the point. The meaning doesn't lie with the author, but the reader. It is far from being about the author inserting hidden codes within a work. It is much more about the reader-critic arguing for a particular positon or series of positions within a text or texts.

If you read the thread through maybe we covered that the first time.

OK, I can understand what you're saying. I have no problem with the reader-critic believing that the author is trying to make a particular point and then using the author's work as evidence of that point. I just don't like it when people try to find some deep hidden meaning in every single aspect of a piece of literature. I mean, it's one thing to say that "I think the author is trying to get across this idea, and that might explain why he, say, named a character what he did." It's another to say that "I wonder why the author chose this name for a character. I'm sure there's some deep literary significance to it that I can find if I analyze the work enough."

[LitNetIsGreat]

Here's what I wrote earlier, which I still stand by:


I don't believe that any piece of literature can be over-analysed to the point that it ruins the work itself. Different points of analysis are merely different viewpoints that can be taken or leaven at the door.

The only way that an analysis can possibly be harmful is if a teacher/critic argues that a piece has only one possible meaning, or restricts the free interpretation of a work of art for their students. Either way this is trying to reduce the art, and the students' appreciation of it, which is simply a fault of the teacher/critic and not of the object of analysis itself.

There is no such thing as over-analysing literature.

You are perfectly free to disagree with any interpretation which someone makes regarding minute details of a text, but it doesn't make that interpretation wrong. Writing is vastly more complex than we can ever give credit to. "Hidden meaning" as you allude to, is far from something which the author slots into the text like a cryptic crossword, literature doesn't work that way, it's far more complex and can't be reduced to "what does the author mean?" Writing takes on its own life, free from the construction of the text and the author who wrote it.

[kelby_lake]

Authors can intend something and then realise it's metamorphosised into something else. In one of the plays I wrote, I wrote a character intending for him to be enigmatic and able to have anybody he wanted- a power he didn't use because of his moral scruples. But when I looked back on it, I realised he was puritanical and disgusted by all that attention- possibly from a repressed desire for a colleague. A reader could read it either way; if the character was unambiguous, the assertion that he's attractive to most people he meets wouldn't hold up.

[dfloyd]

the literature teachers were all women and fell into two categories:young women looking for a husband or old maids. I was completely turned off from reading any literature for a number of years. I imagine that the teaching quality of high-school teachers has not improved much. But if you are analyzing books, that is more than I had. The teachers filled their class time with mediocre pursuits, such as having each class member memorize a section, then repeating it to the class as they stood in front of the class.

[IceM]

I never plan on reading Lord of the Flies or Animal Farm again. Thanks, 10th grade Honors Class!