From: LouisFors <LouisFors@aol.com>
Message-Id: <859c1705.34fc523d@aol.com>
Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 13:55:54 EST
To: emweb@fmgmt.mgmt.utoronto.ca
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Subject: Is it possible to know fully the *intent* of an author?
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In a message dated 98-03-03 12:35:59 EST, you write:

> Subj:	 Re: 249 as a non-erotic poem
>  Date:	98-03-03 12:35:59 EST
>  From:	TBBALTZ@aol.com (TBBALTZ)
>  Sender:	owner-emweb@fmgmt.mgmt.utoronto.ca
>  Reply-to:	emweb@fmgmt.mgmt.utoronto.ca
>  To:	emweb@fmgmt.mgmt.utoronto.ca
>  
>  This entire discussion reminds me of a poem in a poetry class I was in.  A
>  student had written a poem, read it to the class...and the response was
>  awesome.  But then as students were discussing it, it became apparent the
>  interpretation was Much different than what had been intended.  The writer 
> had
>  simply written about surfing and the feelings of getting the right wave,
and
>  finishing at the beach with waves crashing over her.  What was being read 
> into
>  it was a very descriptive sexual description.  The poor girl was mortified
>  when she realized how her words were being mis understood.  I must admit
>  either way it was a well written poem, even with the dual meaning.  But the
>  dual meaning was not what the writer had intended.
>  
>  Personally I have to wonder if this is what is happening to ED right about
>  now.
>  

A question to those who teach literature these days:  is the Intentional
Fallacy still in vogue?  When I was in graduate school some forty-five years
ago I took several courses in literature, although I wasn't a major in
literature.  0ne of the ideas that was pounded very hard was a notion called
Intentional Fallacy.  Unless I have rearranged the idea through the years, I
think the basic message was:  Thou shalt not inquire into intention of the
author as conclusive evidence of meaning, since that is impossible to know,
even, as I recall, by asking the author/painter/composer directly.  Was it
Frost, who, on being asked the meaning of a poem, said:  "Let me read it to
you again."   I gather the thinking was that artists create symbols (in
language, paint, music, etc.) and that, in the process of that creation,
material goes into the work that may be below the level of overt awareness.  

I once took a graduate course titled "The Phsychology of Communication," and
the professor's definition of successful communication was that the person
receiving (accessing) the message had gotten precisely what the creator had
intended.  How to find out intention:  ask the originator of the message. That
created a mighty flap among students and other professors deriving from the
idea that the originator might not be able to articulate (or even know fully)
what he/she intended.

I would appreciate it if someone could address the concept that, at one time,
at least, was called The Intentional Fallacy.  I may have butchered it in the
foregoing description, but somebody may be able to make sense of my thought.
Sorry for the length of this post.

Thanks,

Louis Forsdale