Okay. This is the simplest way I think I can make my point.
If you made a book, would you have made it with purpose? Or intention?
Because if you would have made it without any purpose, then okay, I agree with everything you've said. But you wouldn't have.
This 'Death of the author notion',
"any attempt to guess his intent will always be a personal interpretation, when frankly his intent has little to no bearing on the product. This phenomena has been labeled by some as 'the Death of the author', where an author loses all rights and control over meaning once he or she has composed."
This must be the most stupid notion I've ever come across. How can you believe that the author's own intent has little or no bearing on the product? For what then did they create their works? Every word, every technique, every part of their works would have been created WITH THAT INTENT in mind - so then where do YOU suddenly obtain all right and control over his meaning? And when do YOU suddenly obtain the right to dismiss ALL PURPOSE of his work?
The fact is, an author's intent CANNOT and SHOULD NEVER be dismissed, for the simple fact that his work is a product OF THAT INTENT - It's cause and effect - The cause for creating his work was that intent, and to remove it, changes the effect of his work to something else entirely.
Consider if you yourself were a writer of the Bible - would you want people suddenly reading that the meaning of 'love' is to kill others, from your work?
Would your original meaning or original purpose then, be of no consideration?
That you, the author, are probably dead now means nothing - what makes your work great is if it can still put forward that original meaning with clarity, so that such meaning cannot be re-intrepreted to suit the liking of just about anyone. Indeed, even though people at times have to re-interpret small, specific parts of the Scriptures, if it fits into overal clearer meaning of what the Bible puts forward, then it is probably better then not interpreting it at all - but the interpretation is still done ON the basis of the author's original intent, not with the disgusting disregard to it that you seem to be proposing, no, it has to be where the interpretive meaning is one of which can be derived from and fits into the rest of the work - interpretation like this is done ONLY WHERE NECCESSARY and NEVER on the basis of one's own personal wants to extract further or entirely different meanings, only on the BASIS of the author's ORIGINAL meaning and INTENT!
"A real life example would be if you said something and another person was offended - you may not have intended for there to be offense but it would now exist and your comment would have become offensive. In technical terms this would be saying several discourses can be derived from your product"
But there you go! Then doesn’t your intentional meaning, in that comment of offense, suddenly become THAT MUCH MORE important?
The person MUST understand your meaning, otherwise re/mis-interpretation of the meaning changes the EFFECT the other person wanted to bring about with his comment!
THAT’S why meaning is so important, especially ORIGINAL meaning. It does not matter that ‘several discourses’ can be derived from a product – what matters is what discourse was originally put forward purposefully for derivation FROM that product and whether such meaning was actually understood by whatever audience the work was intended for
"All work is subjective, and there in fact a whole cultural and literary movement based on the idea that meaning can never really be fixed or known. Its called postmodernism."
All work should NEVER be entirely and wholly subjective, to the point where the meaning too also becomes wholly subjective. Otherwise, all works becomes futile, if the purpose of the work (to put forward its original message and meaning) is never achieved. It’s called pointlessness.
"Psychics do not use literary techniques, that is why they (arguably) are not held in the same regard as Eliot. I'm sure if a psychic published his or her 'visions' as a suite of poetry then they would be looked upon differently (though not neccesarily as valid foretelling)"
If you'd read what I wrote, I stated that the work of a psychic and Eliot's own work are of THE SAME NATURE!
Consider all those times you've read those astrology sections of the newspaper, all the psychic readings that you've come across - yet just because YOU can re-interpret the meaning of those messages (due to their open ended ambiguity), does that make the message itself suddenly a valid foretelling? According to you, it does!
"...No. YOU may have interpreted only one meaning from the text, but that does not mean meanings do not exist. It would be folly for you to presume your perceptions are the limits to which discourses are bound..."
It would be folly for YOU to presume that there should be NO limits to which discourses are bound, and it is through folly like THAT, that psychics make their billions of dollars around the world.
"I'd argue that Eliot did probably have some meaning in mind when composing, but as I've said earlier in my post - his intended meaning is not all that relevant."
Poets do NOT write their works, so that they can become the playthings of people like YOU! Intended meanings ARE VERY RELEVANT, as I've said earlier in my post -
An artist that makes the Leaning Tower of Pisa out of playdough, doesn't do so, just so people like YOU can come around, and reduce it to a mouldy thing so that YOU can play around and have your fun with it - Then where does that effort and time go? Where does PURPOSE go? You have absolutely NO RIGHT to ever discard purpose, because that is a very straight path towards discouraging future authors, poets and artists from creating their works, lest it fall into the hands of people like YOU - so be careful where you are treading here!
"The interpretive process was never intended to be applicable to a poetry's meaning. Nor to a poet's intentions. "
"Here you are interpreting an entire process, and labelling your interpretation as absolute fact. What is it that makes you believe your interpretation is any more valid?"
I'll tell you what makes me believe so. In case you still don't understand how to be empathetic:
You would never, as an author or an artist or a poet, want people to re-interpret what you original message was to have been -
So what's left then, to still be allowed to be interpreted?
The context - the WHERE - WHERE you can apply the meaning, whether in the 1950's or today or in 4000 AD. That's where the interpretative process was intended to be applied - NEVER to an author's own message - and that's a purely logical but rational argument - only if you have the ability to put yourself in a writer's shoes!
Why presume you are of a level with his intended audience? You may be beneath the audience he was trying to reach or you may be above it and thus may have over complicated it. Of course this is all if you know what his intent was. Which it has been established, repeatedly, that you do not.
We don't know his intent - that is something we don't argue - but the problem lies in what we believe his intent to have been - because that 'I believe his intent was..' ranges to various extremities in regards to his work - the interpretations range from one view, to other views ENTIRELY! With other works, interpretations, once analysed collectively, if they are simliar or of simliar nature then it becomes easy to see that the author had put across his message in a way so that a majority of people would understand THAT message, which is proof by the similarity of the collective interpretations (on the basis we don't know of his original interpretation, which is a basis that I do understand, exists for many various works) - but this same collective analysis over interpretations of Eliot's work's meanings, have led me to realize that his work is not that of a genius!
In this way, this statement is wrong, if the interpretation you are referring to, is meant for the author's meaning:
"They're not wrong, no one's interpretation can ever really be 'wrong' for there is no such thing as definite meaning or absolute truth. If you go on to do Advanced English - module C: Telling the Truth, or History Extension then you'll cover this concept in more detail. However suffice to say, no one person's interpretation is ever really completely 'wrong'."
Definite meaning. Absolute truth. If you say 'I hate cakes' - is that not definite? If you say 'I love Anna with all my heart' - is that not absolute? Don't question the action here, question the statement, the words - do they lead you to re-interpret them? If there are no definite meanings, no absolute truths, then why not question every single little piece of writing, including your own, and my own, and their veracities - indeed let's indeed question everything written, everything said from moment of begining to the present now- but aside from that, even if somehow you were even slightly correct in this regard, can we not then at least look towards implicated meanings? Truths by implications? Where the implications are that of the AUTHOR'S and can be seen in any collective analysis of intepretations of meanings - But suffice it to say, that you cannot regard every person's interpretation of others' works as ever being completely correct either - Or is that what you are suggesting as well?
That if you say Tomatoes, and I say you said Potatoes, then I can't be wrong, what you said doesn't matter, and that's how it should be for everything else you say?
Think again.
