On Tue, Sep 25, 2001 at 03:54:18PM +0200, Natasa Tucev wrote:
Ellynne wrote:
<The thing about B7 is that there are so many things that I'm sure no one consciously put in (and, some would argue, that aren't present outside of the minds of some of the viewers), yet they're _there_. Maybe it's because some things feel right to writers, actors, whoever, even when they aren't _consciously_ created.>
Well, literary criticism tends to be rather heedless of the author's conscious intentions. The usual procedure is to apply one or more of the existing critical approaches and see how much meaning a text yields when examined from that aspect. A good work of art should be able to snap the umbilical cord binding it to its author and exist in its own right.
Which is why I've never had much respect for Literary Criticism.
A work has a context, and part of that context is the author. Yes, an author's intended message isn't usually what the audience hears, but it still is an important factor. What you're saying here seems to be that Literary Criticism wishes that works of art didn't have authors at all, or that who wrote it is irrelevant. Which is ridiculous! Or we wouldn't have spent so many interesting hours discussing Ben Steed -- or the differences between Terry Nation and Chris Boucher...
I lost all respect for Literary Criticism when I saw someone try to apply Freud to a work (in the name of Literary Criticism), and claim that it meant something. Discussing the Freudian imagery of a work may be an amusing game, but it can't tell you what it means, any more than phrenology will tell you what a person is like.
Kathryn Andersen -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Vizzini has just cut the rope] Vizzini: HE DIDN'T FALL? INCONCEIVABLE! Inigo: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. (The Princess Bride)