SHAKSPER 2002: Re: Authorial Intention

From: Hardy M. Cook (editor@shaksper.net)
Date: 10/07/02 

The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 13.2016  Monday, 7 October 2002

[1]     From:   Martin Steward <MSteward@mds1974.freeserve.co.uk>
        Date:   Friday, 4 Oct 2002 15:13:03 +0100
        Subj:   Re: SHK 13.2003 Re: Authorial Intention

[2]     From:   Mike Jensen <jensensh@hotmail.com>
        Date:   Friday, 04 Oct 2002 09:24:22 -0700
        Subj:   Re: SHK 13.2003 Re: Authorial Intention

[3]     From:   John-Paul Spiro <johnpaulspiro@hotmail.com>
        Date:   Friday, 04 Oct 2002 15:21:50 -0400
        Subj:   Intentional Follies

[4]     From:   Claude Caspar <claudecaspar@msn.com>
        Date:   Friday, 4 Oct 2002 22:48:40 -0400
        Subj:   Re: SHK 13.2003 Re: Authorial Intention

[5]     From:   Takashi Kozuka <resuscitation@yahoo.co.uk>
        Date:   Sunday, 6 Oct 2002 13:13:54 +0100 (BST)
        Subj:   Re: Authorial Intentions


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Martin Steward <MSteward@mds1974.freeserve.co.uk>
Date:           Friday, 4 Oct 2002 15:13:03 +0100
Subject: 13.2003 Re: Authorial Intention
Comment:        Re: SHK 13.2003 Re: Authorial Intention

Those of us arguing that authorial intentions are unrecoverable are, of
course, referring to non-contingent authorial intentions. The point in
making this observation is to preserve the contingencies of authorial
intention as a site of critical dispute and negotiation.

So I agree (after absorbing his intentional prod at my epistemological
naievety - ouch!) with R. A. Cantrall, that “Skepticism is not ‘kinda
questioning stuff,’ it is a formal system of argumentation built of
specific parts, for specific purposes” and that “the more reflective
Skeptic” who “prefers that you achieve aporia, and that he or she gets
to keep right on gabbling about whatever takes their fancy at the
moment”. I just find that gabbling can be interesting (sometimes).

There are intentions - of course there are - but to define them in terms
that are entirely arbitrary, i.e. at the level of the individual mind
(whatever that is), seems to me perverse (well... arbitrary). I can
understand why we might wish to do this for the sake of legal clarity in
arguments about intellectual property (although even this has been
revealed to be problematic in our postmodern age), but I can’t see what
it contributes to aesthetic criticism.

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Mike Jensen <jensensh@hotmail.com>
Date:           Friday, 04 Oct 2002 09:24:22 -0700
Subject: 13.2003 Re: Authorial Intention
Comment:        Re: SHK 13.2003 Re: Authorial Intention

I know I'm going to regret taking sides publicly.

I was impressed by the posts of Tony Burton, Gabriel Egan and Matthew
Baynham.   Tony’s comments put me in mind of my old tutor Jack.  My grad
studies were in hermeneutics, and Jack was a master.  His
interpretations took in every line and nuance of a text, and were
therefore usually persuasive in a way that mine still are not.  Jack
made the point that nearly every author has an intention when he or she
writes.  To ignore this is to ignore something absolutely intrinsic to a
text.  It is the task of an interpreter to reconstruct this and the task
of hermeneutics to give us tools for doing it.

Gabriel and Matthew did a good job pointing out difficulties with Jack’s
premise.  Another is the frequency of textual corruption.  The Talmud is
ample evidence of the difficulty of this task.  Therein everyone has a
different interpretation, though some of the more extreme comments may
be explained by the use of shaky tools.  On the other hand, Jack is
right.  I have a purpose for writing this.  If you describe it
accurately, you are right about my intention.  If not, you are wrong.
That may be my fault if I did not communicate well, or it may be yours
if you are either more interested in putting forth your own ideas than
you are in understanding mine, or if you are not a careful reader.  I
reserve the absolute right to say that you did not understand me,
whatever the cause.

The notion that authorial intent is meaningless is obviously wrong if
authors have intentions.  The real problem is the formidability of
discovering those intentions.  Some list members are aware of this, but
the comments of others give the impression that they are not.  Too often
texts are darkened as commentators gets on their hobby horses, rather
than illuminated by cautious understanding.  I hope I have not been
guilty of any darkening in this post.

Mike Jensen

[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           John-Paul Spiro <johnpaulspiro@hotmail.com>
Date:           Friday, 04 Oct 2002 15:21:50 -0400
Subject:        Intentional Follies

Just when our beloved editor complains about not having enough time for
unnecessary fiddle-faddle, we go off on a tired dispute on authorial
intentions.  And worse, I only add to the problem by putting in my
one-and-a-half cents here.  Even more worse, one of my one-and-a-half
cents isn’t even my own.

Richard P. Wheeler had some good words on the subject of authorial
intention in Shakespeare Quarterly 51.2 (Summer 2000).  Forgive me for
quoting him at length: “we note...that a specific image reappears in
certain kinds of situations throughout the works; or that usurpation is
a recurrent theme in the history plays, the comedies, the tragedies, and
the romances; or that Shakespeare’s dramatizations of his historical
moment differ in distinctive ways from those of Marlowe or Jonson; or
that Shakespeare’s women do or do not represent a Galenic one-sex model
of gender; or that The Tempest reprises many characteristic
Shakespearean themes and situations.  Some sort of authorial presence is
conjecturally introduced by such rudimentary observations, mediating
between the patterned particularities of the texts on the one hand and
the historical arena or a world of pure formal possibility on the other”
(130).

Now this has more to do with the troubled notion of “the author” than it
does of “intention,” but still we should see his point.  We read, we see
patterns and variations, we recognize that those patterns exist in our
minds and yet somehow are prompted by these works in front of us which,
we assume, are written by the same hand.  I repeat Wheeler: “Some sort
of authorial presence is conjecturally introduced by such rudimentary
observations.”  We make our critical claims but we recognize their
conjectural nature.  If we are convincing, then our readers acknowledge
that these patterns we have noticed, these meanings we draw from the
texts, are indeed suggested by the texts and are not projected on them
by us like so many critical fantasies.

Authorial intention is a problem, one we have to deal with.  We should
not ignore it (as in “these are just words on a page, there is no
author, there’s no point in wondering about the identity(ies) that these
words seem to collectively call up”), nor should we solve it (as in
“Shakespeare wrote these words and he meant x by them”), nor should we
drift into nonsense (as in “these words couldn’t have been written by
this man, so they were written by someone else, or they were written by
his historical period and not by him at all).

Facile critical solutions lead to silly Intro to Philosophy paradoxes.
“There is no author” ... so you didn’t write those words?  “There is no
intention” ... so you didn’t mean that?  “There is no meaning” ... not
even what you just said?  And so on, like an episode of “Moonlighting”
but not as funny.

John-Paul Spiro
CUNY Graduate Center

[4]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Claude Caspar <claudecaspar@msn.com>
Date:           Friday, 4 Oct 2002 22:48:40 -0400
Subject: 13.2003 Re: Authorial Intention
Comment:        Re: SHK 13.2003 Re: Authorial Intention

"I can see nothing in my comments that should merit any hate..."

Of course, I didn't direct this [seriously] to any one in particular!!!
It was meant with a smile the Internet obfuscated: I hate these
discussions that are so beguiling.

[5]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Takashi Kozuka <resuscitation@yahoo.co.uk>
Date:           Sunday, 6 Oct 2002 13:13:54 +0100 (BST)
Subject:        Re: Authorial Intentions

As we are in fact receiving too many posts (some of which are posted by
the same person and consist of just one sentence or two), I’ll make mine
as concise as possible.

L. Swilley has suggested:

>[...] it is best to ignore
>the author altogether and to concentrate on the work
>itself, as though
>the author were unknown, for the elements of the
>work that live on are
>those that describe the mystery of our unchanging
>humanity.

It is true, I believe, that ‘the intention of the author can never be
FULLY and RELIABLY recovered’ (emphasis added). However, the above
approach to the literary text (ie, ‘Ignore the author altogether!’)
simplifies the process of interpretation. Recovery of the authorial
intention is one thing; acknowledgment of the author’s involvement is
another. Mr/Ms Swilley’s suggestion neglects the post-postmodern theory
of meaning-making, namely that both the author and the reader are
‘agents’ in the process of interpretation of the text. This is not to
claim that

the reader must recover the author’s intentions, but to recognise the
author (what he or she says, how he or she says it, why he or she says
in that particular way, what cultural and ideological elements—some of
which Gabriel has recently pointed out—are involved in his or her
process of writing, etc.) as part of the activity of interpretation of
the text.

Best wishes,
Takashi Kozuka

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Hardy M. Cook, editor@shaksper.net
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