Literary intention, literary interpretation, and readers
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Bibliographic Information
Literary intention, literary interpretation, and readers
Broadview Press, c2009
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 395-422) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
This accessible, personal, and provocative study returns to the major subject in literary discussion before and during the relatively recent flourishing of literary theory, that of literary intention. Does the author's personal intention or historical site determine a correct interpretation of a literary work?
Probing the entire range of issues connected with this many-faceted and knotty concept, this book engages with interpretation on both theoretical and practical levels. It argues that the hard questions about interpretation connected to issues of intention cannot be sidestepped or ignored. It does not argue for conservative concepts of literature itself, nor against the major historical engagements of critics in our time. But in addressing those who continue to read or teach literature, it does insist on a level of sophistication in issues of literary interpretation that cannot be assured by historical research and knowledge of the social and cultural connections to literary works. The overall aim of the work is to recall readers to the great complexity, pleasure, and interest of literary interpretation.
Table of Contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
SECTION ONE: INTRODUCTION
SECTION TWO: LITERARY INTENTION/ALITY
Once More with Feeling
Individual Psychological Uncertainties
Ideological and Discursive Uncertainties
Deliberate Uncertainties
Performative Multi-Intentions
Limits on the Author's Control
Cultural Determinism as Disguised Intentionality
Intention in the Text
Intended Initial Reception as a Guide to Intention
Speech Act Thinking as a Way of Establishing Intentions
Words Getting in the Way
Syntax, Grammar, Logic Getting in the Way
Tropes and Figures Getting in the Way
Voice Gets in the Way Too
Thematic Foregrounds Abounding
Foregrounding Forms Abounding: Genres and Structures
Interpretation: Some More Pragmatic Arguments
You Can't Properly Get There from Here: Babes in the Woodsof Historicity
Brief Conclusion to a Long Discourse
SECTION THREE: REREADING READER THEORIES:
INTERVENTIONS AND INTRUSIONS
Introduction
What Was to Fear in the Wolf-gang in Sheep's Clothing
De Man's Narrative of Reading: No Exit-for Others
Reading in Textual Power Reread: The Big One that Got Away
Theory Postscript: Communities and Schools of Fish
SECTION FOUR: CONCLUSION AND WORK IN PROGRESS: READER THEORY MEETS REAL READERS
Appendix 1: More on Speech Act Theory and Intention
Appendix 2: Stanley Fish's Intentions
Works Cited
Index
by "Nielsen BookData"