Darlene McCoy
Jody Greene
Lit 101
23 February 2011
The Fallacy of Bludgeoning Information
Many a literary interpreter attempts to derive a meaning from an author's work, and many a literary theorist argues weather the act is possible. Roland Barthes and the collaborative work of W.K. Wimsatt, Jr. and Monroe C. Beardsley argue about weather or not the author's original intention in writing his work is even relevant to the meaning it produces - for they cannot critique it without determining the piece's meaning. Both parties give the same answer, but they arrive at their conclusion by different means. While Barthes provides a well-detailed argument, Wimsatt and Beardsley's argument discusses their points thoroughly and in a fashion that provides for more clarity.
In his essay, "The Death of the Author," Barthes criticizes readers who determine a work's meaning based off its author's personal traits, beliefs, ethnicity, or any other component of an individual. The reader employs the author's biases to define a "correct" explanation of a text. "To assign an Author to a text is to impose a break on it, to furnish it with a final signified, to close writing" (Barthes, 53). Thus, the reader must separate author and text if he wishes to read a work in a way that is not flawed. Barthes continues, stating that the essential meaning of a text depends on the reader's interpretation, not how the author feels about it, or what he intended to write when he did. He also notes that every individual reads a work in a different way; that each work is "eternally written here and now" (Barthes 52). Since each being reads a text in a different fashion, it is impossible to determine a singular meaning of a text. The text, and only the text speaks for itself - the author's intention in writing the text is irrelevant to the meaning. In other words, the author, because he cannot influence the meaning of his work, dies, and is replaced by the scriptor - a being detached from emotion that uses only language as his origin.
Wimsatt and Beardsley arrive at the same conclusion as Barthes: the intention of the author proves to be unimportant in determining a text's meaning. Their essay, "The Intentional Fallacy," begins by stating that poetry, writing, text, etc. belongs to the public once it is written. They then describe what evidence a reader can draw upon to prove the meaning of a poem. First of all, they explain what they call "Internal Evidence." This evidence is what is present in the text - the historical knowledge needed to understand it, its forms, traditions - everything that makes a language and a culture. It is internal to the type of work - when analyzed, it can never present an intentional fallacy. Next, they define "External Evidence" - evidence that is concerned with the author's intention in creating the work - why he did it. These claims are external to the work itself, and therefore can provide for an intentional fallacy. The third type of evidence is named "Contextual Evidence," and it compares the works of an author. For writing's sake, contextual evidence would compare the sentence structure, tropes, or phrases a certain author uses. Contextual evidence can sometimes cause an intentional fallacy, but other times, contextual evidence, in the case of biographical information, can aid in determining meaning. If a word meant a certain thing for one author, that meaning is part of the history of the word, and therefore its meaning. They conclude that a text's internal evidence is the only evidence that does not create a fallacy. Internal evidence does not encompass the author, but it does encompass how the public interprets it. "[The text] is detached from the author at birth and goes about the world beyond his power to intend about it or control it. The poem belongs to the public" (Wimsatt and Beardsley 104). The public can interpret the work in only one way - it can use its knowledge of language to determine meaning.
Though their paths are different, Wimsatt and Beardsley and Barthes share common ground in arguing that the author's intention is irrelevant to a work's meaning. They both conclude that the author has no control over his work; the "readers" or "public" do. They are the ones that determine the meaning, for they use internal evidence, as Wimsatt and Beardsley call it, or language, as Barthes calls it, to define meaning. They do not use the external evidence provided by the author's life, beliefs, and psychology. Only the text can speak for itself.
While both essays excel at arguing their points, Barthes fails to be as clear or appealing as Wimsatt's and Beardsley's. Wimsatt and Beardsley organize their essay into a form that makes more sense structurally - it is divided into five parts - each containing remarks on a certain idea. Their division of the "evidence" into three different parts allows for the reader to understand them more clearly. Barthes' essay is a nonstop information machine. It goes until the reader is bludgeoned by so many reasons that he becomes utterly convinced that Barthes is correct in his statements. Another reason why the Wimsatt and Beardsley essay resonates more prominently is that the two address a counterpoint to each defined piece of "evidence." Addressing these counterpoints, and explaining them, helps bolster their own point. In the case of internal evidence, they argue that language is what it is - and nothing more - so it will always retain the same intention. For external evidence, they argue that it has no part in literary criticism, and belongs in literary biography, because as soon as an author creates a work, it belongs to the public, and his intention is rendered irrelevant. In the defense of contextual evidence, they argue that the line between it and external evidence is far too fine, and that contextual evidence crosses over that line far too often for it to be considered pertinent to the meaning of the text. It simply ventures too far from the internal context of the work. Once again, Barthes presents his ideas, and assumes that the reader will not question them. Wimsatt and Beardsley prove that the author's intention is irrelevant using an example, a confession of how a poem was written by Alfred Edward Housman. "As I went along, thinking of nothing in particular, only looking at things around me and following the progress of the seasons, there would flow into my mind, with sudden and unaccountable emotion, sometimes a line or two of verse, sometimes a whole stanza at once" (Wimsatt and Beardsley 107). From this passage, it becomes clear to the reader that Housman was inspired by the world around him - he had no intention to even write a poem in the first place, the lines simply came to him. It is impossible to determine an author's intention, especially if it never existed. The last difference between the two essays that makes Wimsatt and Beardsley's more preferable is the fact that Barthes destroys the sense of the author. He takes away the author's life, his influences, and throws them away. Wimsatt and Beardsley simply state that the author, after writing a piece, no longer has control of his work. There is no ultimatum or radical title to their work, which makes the piece more appealing and less inhospitable compared to Barthes. All in all, though, both works present their points in a clear, readable format, Wimsatt and Beardsley just do it better.
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