A Combined Effort

Well… My first attempt at a blog did not seem to go so well, and there are a few things I wish to amend/clarify, so I will attempt to do so in this blog. So to completely start over, here it goes:

Authors, text, words, language, circumstances, society, etc… all play a key role in the interpretation of a text. However, it is important to remember that not every single text will need context or background knowledge. I believe that it is crucial for each text or work to be evaluated individually. One should not make broad assumptions for all works based on experiences with certain cases. I spoke earlier of a “persona,” and by this I was mainly referring to the narrator of the story or work. An author does not always write as him or herself, and this character in the work must be given attention similar to the author.

I must further amend my previous statements, however, after reading Fish’s “How to Recognize a Poem When You See One” and then viewing Williams’s poem, “This is just to say.” Although I do not agree with everything Fish says, he does make a valid point when he claims that each of us is affected by the world around it whether we realize it or not. We are a product of where we were born, the society in which we live, and the people we interact with.

Because of this, it seems that in all cases resides the problem where it is impossible to view a work completely “objectively.” The work was written in the way it was written because of how the author learned, what he was taught, and how he grew up. These deceivingly small details reside in the very fabric of the language and cannot be escaped.

There will always be a certain meaning that the author wants readers to come away with–whether it is simply the literal meaning of the text or some more complex idea behind it–but then there will also usually be extra things in the text that the reader sees and makes significant, even if it’s not. These small ‘misinterpretations’ are nearly impossible to avoid, however, because of the very nature of language. There are certain words that will always have multiple meanings, and certain connotations each reader will feel for a different idea or expression. Because of this, works become a combination of both the author’s and the reader’s intent.

As an example of multiple interpretations and "author's intent," I have placed a common optical illusion above (and to the right) to demonstrate. Do you see an old lady? A young woman turning her head? Which does the artist intend you to see? Does the artist assume you will see both?