Alright Marcus, I'm going to take a stab at answering your initial question. Before that, I'd like to say Kim- I love the fact that you brought up getting stuck on "right" or "wrong" interpretations, it's probably the single issue that bothers me the most. The jury's still out for me, but I'd say your post, and marcus and sylvi's comments land on about the same page as mine.. or at least on pages close together... definitely in the same book though!
Marcus, your question is a really interesting one, and for an answer, based on Zunshine's article I'm going to have to revert to what Prof. Chapman has mentioned in class a few times. This is the idea that our interpretation is an evolutionary, biological phenomenon. Basically, we developed the ability to "read minds" in order to better our chances of survival. I think Zunshine supports this by saying "our cognitive evolutionary heritage structures the ways in which we make sense of fictional narrative..." (1102). This might lead us to think that as a biological factor common to the human race (with exceptions such as autism aside) there might be one common "right" interpretation. However, at the same time, Zunshine acknowledges Richardson and Steen's point: "the history of cognitive structures 'is neither identical to nor separate from the culture they make possible'" (1100).
This leaves me somewhat stumped. If the point is that our interpretation is evolutionary my first instinct is to say then there must be one concrete interpretation, a right answer if you will. However, when you acknowledge differences in the evolutionary process, the various influences of time, place, society and culture, etc on an individual's particular cognitive structures that opens a whole new can of worms and leads back to the last question about a "right" interpretation. What does everyone else think? If there is room for more than one interpretation according to Zunshine, how much room is there? Is there a line and if so where?
7 comments:
There's a telling point here: Professor Chapman's claim was that literature is an evolutionary imperative; you say that interpretation is an evolutionary imperative. You then connect Zunshine to this interpretative move. So are you saying that through interpretation we "read" the author's mind? Are we using the same cognitive skills that we use to understand the intentions of the people around us to interpret works of literature? If so, wouldn't that be an argument for the primacy of authorial intention?
I agree with Joe that there is a very important distinction to be made here. If interpretation is actually the evolutionary imperative, rather than literature, then there is certainly a case to be made for the primacy of authorial intention. (And this is coming from someone who initially was on the side that argued against this in class.)
However, I don't think Zunshine is saying this. She does not say that we "read" the author's mind. She is saying that we read the character's mind. For example, in the quote that Marcus cited earlier, it says that Woolf assumes "we will automatically read a character's body language as indicative of his thoughts and feelings" (1089). This concerns reading the mind of the character. And in the article by Wimsatt and Beardsley on page 811 in the fourth point, there is a distinction made between author and dramatic speaker. I think this is a main obstacle that comes up when debating over this topic. There is a difference between the author and the speaker/narrator. Many times, we view these as one, and this poses a problem in instances like when a male author writes a text with a female speaker. There is an obvious distinction between the two.
Sorry…I may have gone slightly off topic. Basically, when we "read" minds in a text, I think Zunshine argues that we are reading the characters' minds and not the author's.
Emily makes a good point--there is a distinction to be made between the author and the dramatic speaker when debating the author's intent.
If we "read" the minds of the characters instead of the mind of the author of a text, how do we contend with Hirsch's assertion that "meaning requires a meaner" (1405)? Did James Joyce not create Gabriel, Miss Ivors, and other characters that appear in "The Dead?" I think that someone had to make Gabriel complex enough so that he would be analyzed by innumerable critics.
If Joyce created Gabriel Conroy, (perhaps Joyce would be the "meaner" according to Hirsch), are we really "reading" the mind of Gabriel, or the mind of Joyce? If meaning requires a meaner, I would think that we'd argue the latter.
Upon reading Emily's post, I had the same thoughts Marcus did. Although it is important to make that distinction between author and narrator, I cannot help but wonder if there can be a fine line between reading a character's mind and the author's mind, or further, the character speaking can be directly connected to the mind of the author. I am not, by any means saying that this is true; I just wonder as Marcus states, "If Joyce created Gabriel Conroy, (perhaps Joyce would be the "meaner" according to Hirsch), are we really "reading" the mind of Gabriel, or the mind of Joyce? If meaning requires a meaner, I would think that we'd argue the latter." I am not quite sure what to make of this, but maybe it is just because we do tend to overlook the fact that there is a difference between the author and narrator that causes this curiosity. Maybe we can never assert that since an author created a character we are really reading the mind of the author when we are seen to be "reading" that of the character. Thoughts?
Marcus does bring up a good point about the requirement of a “meaner,” and of course, the author is the meaner in any interpretation since the narrator is a product of the author’s mind. However, as “meaner” of the meaning, couldn’t Joyce have intended for Gabriel to be his own individual, devoid of anything Joyce believed in real life?
I still believe that there are times when an author and narrator are extremely distinct. I can’t help but think of T.S. Eliot’s essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent” (which starts on page 537 in The Critical Tradition). In this essay, Eliot argues for “the process of depersonalization” and the “impersonal theory of poetry.” In this argument, he claims that the poet is simply a medium that the poem passes through. In that respect, it wouldn’t make sense to say we are reading the author’s mind, since the author can be purposely was impersonal while writing.
Also, writing can be an outlet of exploration and experimentation for the author, and this could mean writing from a different perspective than he/she is used to. Therefore, one cannot immediately assume that what we “read” in the speaker’s mind is what is in the author’s mind as well.
Basically, there is no real way to “read” the author’s mind from merely the text itself because perhaps there are times when the author is intentionally leaving his perspective out of it.
This is a response to Joe Middlesworth's post. Even though (and I'm not up on my cognitive theory here, but I'll try) there may be an original, sure-fired reason why a text was constructed and written in the way it was, that does not mean that the "author" was the only one to really write it. Sure, all of that stimuli goes into the brain and gets pushed out, but then is "author" intention really the intention of all the cultural forces on the author? Don't they have any bearing in discovering this original intent, that is, the physical writing of the text? I guess I could agree with you only on the basis of a change in the definition of the "author" to include the entire cultural and time framework in which he/she has developed in.
In response to Marcus:
>If Joyce created Gabriel Conroy, (perhaps Joyce
>would be the "meaner" according to Hirsch), are
>we really "reading" the mind of Gabriel, or the
>mind of Joyce? If meaning requires a meaner, I
>would think that we'd argue the latter.
Why not both? And for that matter, we can get the narrator in there too, and nest them in levels of intentionality: from the narrator's attitudes towards of the characters' mental states (including their views of other characters' views of other characters' views etc.) we deduce the author's ideas. I suspect that in literature we are OFTEN way beyond four levels of intentionality. Gosh, English majors are smart.
Wes
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