Wednesday, September 12, 2007
"Language" Barriers
So these past 2 articles we've read seemed very complicated at first...but after discussing them a little, the idea seems much simpler. Barthe's article describes the author-reader relationship as one of birth and death, however, where does one begin and the other end? In a way, an author creates a segway for analysis by readers. There are endless possibilities to analyzing simply one work. However, is this what the author wanted? Or did he/she only mean the text to be interpreted one way? Although many of us see writing as a form of creativity and expressing ideas, it also creates "language" barriers, where the author's intentions could totally be dismissed and replaced with new interpretations from the reader.
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4 comments:
In my opinion, authors differ in way of what they want the reader to get out of their writing. Some authors do have a clear cut message they want people to take away, some do not. I think that regardless of the authors intentions, any writing will be interpreted differently by different individuals.
I would agree that the reading were tough and discussing them in class really helped.
I think that what you said about one versus many interpretations can easily be applied to poetry. I often wonder if our interpretations of some of the most fameous poems match up with the author's intended meaning. There are endless possibilities for interpreting something that seems so complex, yet we always seem to come up with some generally accepted interpretation for the poems. How do we know if what we think is correct especially if the author never reveals the works meaning?
There was once a movie in which a time-travelling William Shakespeare was informed by his literary analysis professor that he "clearly had no idea what Shakespeare was trying to say or do" with his works. I'm sorry to say that I've forgotten the title, but it shouldn't be too hard to find.
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