Authorial Intent/CARPing (was: FF/SHIP: Authorial Intent, Canonical Plausibilit,

[Edblanning at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 39078

Elkins has writen one of those frustrating posts that are too good to leave 
without comment, yet are so good that it's difficult to add to what's already 
been said.
Never mind. I'll throw caution to the wind and have a go.

Elkins:
> A while back, Penny cited a number of past exchanges that have 
> appeared on this list in regard to the fanfic/fanspec debate.
> 
> Now, one of my constant problems with these conversations is that 
> they tend to start from the assumption that the author's intent is of 
> supreme importance to the work itself, that it confers legitimacy on 
> textual interpretation, that it is, in fact, the final authority on 
> the work's true "meaning."
> 
> This is problematic for me on a number of different levels, but 
> 

<lol> Very true! 
Meaning is in the mind of the beholder.
> 
> My perspective on this has admittedly been quite strongly influenced 
> by the fact that my academic background was in the field of classical 
> literature: the writings of the ancient Greeks and Romans. <snip their 
> deadness>
> 
> So while as a classicist, one does indeed often try to reconstruct 
> the cultural context as a means of determing the way in which the 
> works might have been "meant" to be read at the time of their 
> writing, to reconstruct that aspect of authorial intent, it is just 
> such utter guess-work. <>
 And unlike many more modern authors, classical 
> writers didn't leave behind much in the way of correspondence or 
> memoirs describing their conscious intentions either.  The temptation 
> is therefore to adopt a critical approach which looks to the works 
> themselves for meaning, while allowing the dust that was their 
> authors' bones to rest in peace.
> 
> So that's my bias.  All the same, I think that it is a valid
> approach to living authors as well.  Certainly it has been a very 
> 

And how much can we trust what modern authors actually say about their 
intent, anyway? Aside from deliberate misdirection, which might just be the 
temptation of one author with whom we are all familiar, as Elkins goes on to 
point out,

> See, even if there *were* a "One 
> True JKR Interpretation," I don't see why on earth any of us should 
> allow knowing it to influence our reading of her text.  Authors are 
> very rarely the best interpreters of their own works, nor are their 
> interpretations necessarily any more valid than anyone else's.  
> Indeed, authors are often *notoriously* oblivious to the true import 
> of what they themselves have written.  
> 
Following Elkins' first exposition of these ideas, back in February, I posted 
a long-forgotten note commenting from the perspective of my own background, 
in music. Here, the principle is very clear, as music depends on 
interpretation. No interpretation, no music. It is dependent both on the 
interpretation of the performer and that of the listener. 

As music only *happens* at the interface between creator and 
performer/listener, so literature only *happens* at the interface between 
writer and reader.
Writing that is unread remains in the domain of the writer's private thoughts.
Once writing is published, it is available for interpretation; it is no 
longer the author's private domain.

More than that, it can *only* be experienced by interpretation. However much 
we may wish to get inside the writer's mind, we cannot. However objective we 
may wish, or try to be, our own responses will always be governed to some 
extent at least, by our previous experiences, knowledge, temperament, 
culture. Objective interpretation is an unachievable goal.

> <>So while the author can shed light on her original intent, and while 
> this is indeed often very interesting, it does not, IMO, bear any 
> relationship to the actual merit or value of any given reading of a 
> literary work.
> <>As far as I'm concerned, as soon as a written work is distributed, 
> then the question of how it is to be read is out of the author's 
> hands.  Authors may indeed own the right to their works in the legal 
> sense, but they do not own the rights to the reader's 
> *interpretation* of their works, and they certainly have no power to 
> dictate the reader's emotional response to what they have written.
> 

And as I have suggested, an inescapable fact.

> <>
> This is the reason that while I do find interviews with JKR 
> interesting, and I do find them compelling evidence as support for 
> various future speculations, I do not really consider them "canon."  
> They are not canon.  Canon is the text itself.  Literary interviews 
> and literary memoirs are often fascinating -- but they are not the 
> 

One of the things that I think may be at the root of some of the anxiety 
about JKR's authorial intentions is the *unpublished* canon, so to speak. 
Perhaps one of the reasons for concern over whether interpretations are 
canonical or not is that JKR has made it very public that there are 'right' 
answers to many of the questions we ask, 'right' answers that are sitting in 
her little notebooks, perhaps 'right' answers that will never be revealed.

Now, as long as these remain unpublished, remain in her private domain, they 
are not, by Elkins' definition (I think), 'canon' . The problem that I see is 
that we are dealing with an author who conveys a strong sense of authorial 
intent, of wishing to control her creation, whilst intentionally withholding 
parts of it. The suggestion is thus that the unpublished information *is* 
canon, which to JKR, it presumably is, as it's all part of her carefully 
thought-out scheme. 

One of the  fascinating things about the Potterverse is this feeling that we 
are glimpsing part of another world, a world that seems to be (apparently 
claims to be) internally consistent (aren't many of our threads concerned 
with trying to work out these consistencies, smooth out the apparent 
contradictions?), a world, in other words that has some kind of real, 
objective truth about it. (I have been reliably informed by my husband, as I 
was earnestly answering a child's query about the Potterverse, that this is 
not the case!)

This feeling that we are talking about a world with an objective reality sits 
ill at ease alongside our intellectual realisation that it is in fact a 
fictional world, one which we are free to interpret according to our own 
lights. I feel this may account for some of the contradictions in the way we 
choose to interpret it.

...................
It has also crossed my mind that Elkins' analysis provides an insight into a 
little of what is going on in Theory Bay, where CARPing participants very 
clearly lay themselves open to having at least elements of their posts 
interpreted in a way that may not have been their original intention. 

Unlike the author who tries to control his/her creation, CARPers consciously 
throw out scenarios and ideas which other TBAYers are free to pick up and 
reinterpret, frequently in an overtly subversive manner, by some kind of 
unstated, mutual consent. So, for instance, Cindy has her Big Paddle and in 
one scenario, I turn it into the weapon which decapitates Stoned!Harry and in 
another, Elkins smashes it in exasperation. I'm quite sure that Cindy had 
neither of these outcomes in mind when she first acquired it. ;-)

Although verbal interaction on Theory Bay frequently makes use of 
participants' own quoted words, (being true to canon, as it were) again, we 
allow others to put words into our mouths. Or snores. Now come on, who was 
it? Confess! Who was it made out that I snore? Elkins? Was it *you*? Because 
I don't. Not that I've been told. Now, Abelard *does* suffer from a bit of 
nasal obstruction....

Sorry, wrong kind of post. Forgot myself there, for a minute .


Eileen wrote:

>Furthermore, the decorative prose is often quite self-referential, 
>adding a further layer of meaning to the posts. Elkins' latest attack 
>on Cindy is a clever spin on her T.S. Eliot-Neville post. As an 
>English student, I enjoy this sort of cleverness, the moments when 
>one goes - "Oh, that's what the author's up to!" The worm who hopes 
>not to turn, but is forced to, a concept Elkins was discussing, is 
>here made concrete. This is not fanfic, but a form of fictionalized 
>literary analysis, that, I have noticed, many academics love to 
>write.

Now, I have to confess that I naively thought that Elkins had simply been 
goaded to the point where smashing Cindy's paddle seemed irresistible. But 
then, I'm a bit simple like that. After all, in my current field of study, 
the people I'm most interested in are so dead they didn't even *have* 
literature. (Although they did have some pretty cool art forms that 
Stoned!Harry might find familiar! ;-) )

Was this consciously a fiendishly clever piece of self-referential writing on 
Elkins' part, or did she unconsciously mirror in her CARPing her 
interpretation of/identification with Neville? (Was she being herself 
'notoriously oblivious to the true import' of what she wrote?) I think the 
answer to this might give us a little insight into authorial intent. :-)

But what Elkins' and Eileen's points bring home to me is that we are, quite 
openly, inviting other people to interpret us in a way that could be called 
subversive, which. I would suggest, is quite consistent with the subversive 
nature of some (not all) of our TBAY theories.

Eloise

For an explanation of the acronyms and theories in this post, visit
Hypothetic Alley at 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/
HPforGrownups/files/Admin20Files/hypotheticalley.htm 

and Inish Alley at 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/database?
method=reportRows&tbl=13
 


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