Isn't it weird and wrong to 'interpret meanings' that the author never intended?

[fajfall]

Someone on the Coleridge thread said a good teacher doesn't give detailed notes on a work; instead you should come up with your own ideas. This sounded odd to me because you may be saying what the writer intended when in fact it never crossed the writer's mind.

South Park satirised this once when Butters was writing nonsense about poop and adult intellectuals were quarrelling over interpreting what the author was 'really saying'.

I'm all for personal interpretations and experiences but to say that one's own opinion is what the author was 'really meaning' is a bit like religious people quarrelling over some vague religious verse with contradictory interpretations, isn't it?

[Danik 2016]

Literary criticism bases on the idea that a literary work of art is open to different interpretations. But each interpretation must be really supported by the text.

[stlukesguild]

The very idea of reducing a work of art to "meanings" is rather grade-schoolish... and a bit like attempting to define a fine meal by the list of ingredients.

I would also question just how much credence we must give to the artist's "intentions". There are elements that show up in a work of art that an artist never consciously intended. Interpretations of works of art change over the passage of time. Our Shakespeare is not the same as that of Shakespeare's time. Other writers have added to the realm of literature works that result in our seeing Shakespeare in ways that prior eras could never have predicted.

The audience always brings their own experiences to a work of art... these may include personal life experiences but also the experience/knowledge of other works of art, the history of a given art form, other art forms, history, philosophy, religion... indeed, nearly any other discipline or field of study.

Interpretation... and claiming that this is what a given artist "meant" or "intended" are not one and the same.

[Danik 2016]

I quite agree with you, stlukesguild.But a good interpretation can make you see the work of art in a different way.

[JCamilo]

It should be. The works of art that do not allow new interpretations are those we forget.

[ennison]

Trust the tale not the teller was one of DHL's maxims. There are erroneous readings of texts but it is also the case that a text can be considerably more than the sum of its parts. Writer's reveal things unconsciously about themselves and the text and while this is not the same as "what the writer meant", it is the business of every alert reader.

[JCamilo]

Yet. when you read DHL analyses on american novelists, you see him giving a lot of consideration to the writer, so he can understand the context of their works. Just like the "author is dead", you have to consider against which frame of criticism those individuals are analysing literature.

[kev67]

I recently read a couple of articles that claimed one of the characters in Daniel Deronda, written by George Eliot in the 1870s, behaved the way she did because she had been sexually abused by her step-father as a child. It is difficult to believe a Victorian author would write about a subject like this, and there is nothing about it in the introduction, yet the theory really seems to fit. So did George Eliot mean it or not? Although the hints are pretty well hidden, I have to conclude she did.

I remember watching an interview of Quentin Tarrantino talking about the meaning of his film title, Reservoir Dogs. He said it did not really have a meaning, it just sounded cool, but he enjoyed listening to other people's theories of what it meant. I suppose there is a difference between something a bit vague like a film title or some song lyrics that don't quite make sense, and a book which contains deliberate hints all pointing one way.

Reading people's autobiographies can be interesting because they sometimes give away things about themselves they did not intend, or hide things that are important, mostly for taste and decency reasons. It might be that an author with a certain mindset might think he is writing some straight bit of fiction, but the reader can see something else, for example, a different set of values or a partial view of history.

[fajfall]

In Fargo Season 2, the policewoman tells Lester a parable. People online later gave differing, elaborate interpretations of what the parable means, but the writers later revealed that they didn't consider any of this; it was just a simple parable.

People's interpretations of what it 'means' were very interesting, but they weren't what the writers and therefore what the show 'meant'. What are you supposed to do in such a situation, where the answer is simple but the answer you invent yourself is more florid and creative?

(This is the parable: A man boarding a train realises that he dropped one glove on the platform. The train starts moving, so there's no way he can get the glove back. He can throw his remaining glove on the platform thereby losing his other glove, or he can do nothing and he and whoever finds it both have a useless single glove. Lester then asks 'what are you trying to say?'). Some people believed that Lester's so selfish and ego-centric that he can't understand that the self-sacrifice of giving away what is already useless to him will make somebody else happy. Others say that Lester answers a separate, difficult riddle in the following scene with ease, so he's sharp enough to immediately understand the meaning of the parable but consciously chooses to be selfish anyway). If the writers never revealed that they had no meaning in mind, it would remain a mystery and people could debate the meaning of the parable forever. But having revealed it, there is no mystery and therefore no reason to bother theorising, perhaps. I'm new to fiction, and don't quite 'get' how to approach it. I understand I could just make my own interpretation, but it's not based on fact.

[ennison]

One glove ain't useless. If one is useless two are twice as useless. Whaddyamean!?

[Gladys]

It is wrong to 'interpret meanings' that contradict elements of the text, a practice common in high school literature classes. An interpretation that satisfies most elements of a text is usually bankrupt.

[The Comedian]

Literature ain't a riddle, puzzle, or kids' treasure hunt -- the idea that "what the author meant" is an aspect of literature, sure. As St. Luke's said, its sort of like the "list of ingredients". Now that list is something to note, even something to quibble over. But it's not the meal and it's certainly not the flavor. Literature can mean a lot of things, sometimes a particular perspective isn't even trying to see what the author intended: maybe that person wants to see how certain human emotions span across time, or how parallel dilemmas or traumas saw their conclusion and (thereby) gain some insight to a current issue, some readers are just fascinated by story, some are fascinated by craft and words(wo)manship. Back to meaning: a text can "mean" a lot of different things, but that doesn't mean it can mean anything (as Gladys pointed out). Just like that list, sure that same list of ingredients could make a lot of tasty and not-so-tasty meals, but you sure couldn't fix a car with it.