The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 18.0671 Monday, 8 October 2007
[1] From: Martin Mueller <
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Date: Thursday, 4 Oct 2007 09:23:47 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 18.0664 Authorial Intention
[2] From: Mark Alcamo<
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Date: Thursday, 4 Oct 2007 09:11:30 -0700
Subj: Re: SHK 18.0664 Authorial Intention
[3] From: Peter Bridgman <
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Date: Thursday, 4 Oct 2007 20:14:18 +0100
Subj: Re: SHK 18.0664 Authorial Intention
[4] From: R. A. Cantrell <
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Date: Thursday, 4 Oct 2007 21:18:40 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 18.0664 Authorial Intention
[5] From: R. A. Cantrell <
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Date: Thursday, 4 Oct 2007 21:44:02 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 18.0664 Authorial Intention
[6] From: John Drakakis <
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Date: Friday, 5 Oct 2007 12:26:28 +0100
Subj: RE: SHK 18.0664 Authorial Intention
[7] From: Joseph Egert <
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Date: Friday, 5 Oct 2007 12:57:53 -0700 (PDT)
Subj: Re: SHK 18.0657 Authorial Intention
[8] From: Alan Horn <
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Date: Monday, 8 Oct 2007 21:53:20 +0900
Subj: Re: SHK 18.0664 Authorial Intention
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Martin Mueller <
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Date: Thursday, 4 Oct 2007 09:23:47 -0500
Subject: 18.0664 Authorial Intention
Comment: Re: SHK 18.0664 Authorial Intention
Michael Luskin writes with an impatience that I can partly understand
>I am not so interested in theory as in discussion of what is going on.
But how do you ever know what is "going on" in the first place? One of
the most thoughtful books of the last forty years, Michael Oakeshott's
"On Human Conduct" (Oxford, 1975), starts with a long reflection on what
he calls a "going-on," anything that attracts our notice. He
distinguishes between two types of 'goings-on', which "predicate
categorically different orders of inquiry." There are goings-on "the
identification of which includes the recognition that they are
themselves exhibitions of intelligence . . . (a biologist at work, the
engagement of the audience at a place, a boy learning Latin)," and there
are goings-on that can be recognized and nderstood but are not
themselves "exhibitions of intelligence: for example, a rock formation,
a wave breaking on the shore, . . . melting ice." Elsewhere he
distinguishes between 'processes' and 'procedures': the 'blinking' of an
eye is a process, a 'wink' is a procedure "the identification of which
includes the recognition" of an exhibition of intelligence.
Was that a blink or a wink? The writing of a play is a procedure, most
certainly involves "exhibitions of intelligence." And so are the acts of
making sense of the play. Complex human procedures trying to make sense
of the complex procedures underlying the "goings-on" in some human event
four centuries ago.
Figuring out what is "going on" is a pretty tricky business. What was on
Gertrude's mind (conceding for a moment that "she" had one in the first
place). What did Shakespeare "have in mind" when he made her say this
but not that? What is on your mind when you resolve those questions one
way rather than another?
If there were easy questions to those answers, we probably would have
found them by now.
[2]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Mark Alcamo<
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Date: Thursday, 4 Oct 2007 09:11:30 -0700
Subject: 18.0664 Authorial Intention
Comment: Re: SHK 18.0664 Authorial Intention
I threw in my two cents yesterday on this topic, so I thought I'd double
down today.
Some of my thoughts on Authorial Intent:
As I tried to convey in my last e-mail, it is easy to get wrapped around
the axle when a topic such as this gets too esoteric, and in my opinion,
it gets off track. I don't mean to sound egotistic or conceited, but my
tendency is to be irreverent at times, this is one of those times. Much
of what I read on Authorial Intent either sounds like Philosophic
epistemology debates (which I've never been able to comprehend) or a
masterpiece of confusion with regard to who doubled up on what part
(which I consider a forest for trees issue).
Unless 'Authorial Intent' is a misnomer, I believe we need to recognize
Shakespeare is an 'Author' first and foremost, and his work is
'Literary.' I understand this flies in the face of current scholarship
about the collaborative nature of theatre and what kind of day the Globe
Scribe (I read his bio, but I forget his name) was having (fair or foul)
... [ See 'quagmire.' ] ...
We all know the power of Shakespeare's poetry: It's complexity, the
multi-layered (inside out, upside down) (Human) nature of it, it's
fractal nuance ... More than one credible critic has used considered
terms as 'inexhaustible' and 'unfathomable.' To paraphrase Ron Rosenbaum
(Shakespeare's Wars) it sounded to me like he tried to understand some
passage of Shakespeare and he felt like he lost his equilibrium. And to
be honest, I remember once trying to pick apart a passage and really
understand it all the views of it ... (and this is absolutely True) - I
'felt' Shakespeare and his Muse laughing at me! It was very strange ...
In a nutshell (Disclaimer: my opinion): Attempting to shoehorn
Shakespeare's Art into the constraints of 'his Zeitgeist' is like saying
you can only get out of the Bible what you 'experience' in Cecil B.
DeMille's filmography.
In a nutshell: What was Shakespeare's Intention? (My opinion ...) To
make us think. i.e.) His Art is intentional. He intends to confuse the
hell out of us. He intends to make us work (think) to understand him.
Of course I have to agree, there is a lot to gain by studying
Shakespeare's Times and how his Art had to fit in. For instance, we know
'Renaissance' England was actually a brutal regime. I would volunteer it
was easily as brutal as any in the world today, including the deposed
Sadam Hussein (but excluding Africa) (Who honestly knows what insanity
goes on there). They routinely executed 'non conformists' and placed
their heads on pikes on London Bridge to keep the Public 'informed.'
Shakespeare had relative's heads on display (Somerville Affair), and by
all accounts we have today, it was largely just another routine
arbitrary Abuse of Power. How could the Artists respond? This was not an
environment where Harold Pinter could write his plays and then call a
News Conference to 'raile against all the first borne of Egypt.'
I'm going out on the limb here, but I always tend to give Shakespeare
the benefit of the doubt. I see in much of what he writes not 'just' a
mirror on his times, but if you read close, you may find not just some
oblique shots at Big Brother, but some blistering commentary on the
Powers-that-Be.
For example, Henry V has always been seen in two lights, Warrior V.
Peace Monger. I don't need to 'project' my own 'enlightened' attitude
to see that Shakespeare himself fell in the second category. If you
read Harold Goddard's comments (The Meaning of Shakespeare) on the play
it will get you going in this direction, and I'm certain there are other
critics who see it the same way. Henry V is a character study of a 'Not
Ready for Prime Time Player King.' Just L-oo-k at the excuse for just
war. I honestly wonder how the Elizabethan Actor kept from laughing,
did he have to stick a needle in his thigh while spouting this nonsense?
I know someone may volunteer 'that's what Holingshed's (or whoever)
says,' and I say fine, fiction has to be plausible, but we need to
understand why Shakespeare included it. Just 'cause? Absurd ...
Apparently people as renown as Peter Brook have spoken of his quest for
secret plays in Shakespeare's work and Clare Asquith (Shadowplay) goes
through quite a bit of effort to show coding in his plays. We all know
the cliche of plays within plays in Shakespeare (and other Elizabethan
Playwright's) work, and I have to say, I see many examples of it, and
it's not coded, it's in your face if you catch the light just right.
Here are just two examples from the play I am currently studying, As You
Like It:
1) In the famous 'Sweet are the uses of Adversity' speech (II, i) if you
are 'willing' to consider the nasty weather (Winter) as an allusion to
the Powers-that-Be, after commenting on 'painted pompe' and 'envious
Court' Duke Senior says,
This is no flattery: these are counsellors
That feelingly perswade me what I am:
... and I have to say, it wasn't difficult for me to imagine a
conversation between Shakespeare and the Queen (paraphrasing):
Shakespeare: Your Highnesse, hast thou ever considered thy
fawning courtiers mightst be blowing smoke up thou Royal skirt?
The Queen: This is no flattery: these are counsellors
That feelingly perswade me what I am:
(I can't help it, this is the sense of humor I project on Shakespeare.)
2) And then later when Jaques is musing about being a fool and cleansing
the infected world if they but patiently receive his medicine (II vii).
(Wonderful, who doesn't feel that way?) But Duke Senior has a comeback
that is typically rich because of the cavalcade of thoughts it might
spring, but which might also be summarized as, 'Ha, you'd screw it up,
IT'S A CHARACTER ISSUE. And then Jaques reply doesn't respond to Duke
Senior's charge at all, he not only provides us Shakespeare and
Company's alibi (Plausible Deniability), but also, not in code, but
right there in black and white, indicts the status quo.
Why who cries out on pride,
That can therein taxe any priuate party:
Doth it not flow as hugely as the Sea,
Till that the wearie verie meanes do ebbe.
What woman in the Citie do I name,
When that I say the City woman beares
The cost of Princes on vnworthy shoulders?
Who can come in, and say that I meane her,
When such a one as shee, such is her neighbor?
Or what is he of basest function,
That sayes his brauerie is not on my cost,
Thinking that I meane him, but therein suites
His folly to the mettle of my speech,
There then, how then, what then, let me see wherein
My tongue hath wrong'd him: if it do him right,
Then he hath wrong'd himselfe: if he be free,
Why then my taxing like a wild-goose flies
Vnclaim'd of any man. But who come here?
- TAX with impunity. And it's funny because scholars have struggled
over 'wearie' - well, we know how Liz (God=Sea) liked to dress well ...
weary, wary, where were we?
- Oh - unworthy shoulders. 'You, Your Highness? Well no, obviously
that was Mary Queen of the drunk Scots I was referring to, Oh my.
- And the Leaping Lords? Reportedly God's (Second) Gift of Greek &
Roman Heroes ... actually, you ARE riding the backs of the poor also.
Remember, food for cannon? Someone has to pay for those rags, it's not
the rich.
- And the bottom line, I don't wrong you, I just hold the mirror for
you. If the shoes fit, how many pair can I put you down for?
... And there are many many many more of these type allusions
throughout what I've read. I haven't got to the Scene yet where
Touchstone speaks of feigning poetry, but remembering the first or
second time reading it, I was pretty floored. For me, it was like
Shakespeare was saying, 'You people, you just don't get it ...'
(Sorry for such a long comment, but I wanted to be clear, and
(hopefully) ... substantive.)
Mark Alcamo
Bremerton, WA.
[3]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Peter Bridgman <
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Date: Thursday, 4 Oct 2007 20:14:18 +0100
Subject: 18.0664 Authorial Intention
Comment: Re: SHK 18.0664 Authorial Intention
Michael B. Luskin writes ...
>How do we separate the Catholic and Protestant threads
>in Hamlet, Wittenburg, Purgatory, Is the lay to be read
>from one point of view or the other? Why are they so
>intertwined, and to my mind, so inseparable? Why did
>Shakespeare do that?
Because it would be very surprising if WS was himself clear on the
religious question.
When Elizabeth came to the throne, England was still (outside the urban
centres at least) largely a Catholic country; when she died, England was
largely Protestant. During those decades the allegiances and
consciences of the English people were being pulled in two directions.
Hamlet's indecision reflects the tug of war that most English people
felt. On the one hand he represents the younger Protestant-educated
generation; on the other hand he is prepared to make a wager of a
thousand pounds that the Ghosts's words (and presumably therefore, the
existence of Purgatory) are true. Like his generation, he is mixed up.
Peter Bridgman
[4]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: R. A. Cantrell <
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Date: Thursday, 4 Oct 2007 21:18:40 -0500
Subject: 18.0664 Authorial Intention
Comment: Re: SHK 18.0664 Authorial Intention
>How do we separate the Catholic and Protestant threads in Hamlet,
>Wittenburg, Purgatory, Is the lay to be read from one point of view or
>the other? Why are they so intertwined, and to my mind, so inseparable?
Perhaps the Ideas, Catholic and Protestant, are presented in collision.
Hamlet is out of Wittenberg (the University),per Luther, and Laertes is
out of Paris (the University), as were many of Luther's persecutors at
his trial.
[5]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: R. A. Cantrell <
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Date: Thursday, 4 Oct 2007 21:44:02 -0500
Subject: 18.0664 Authorial Intention
Comment: Re: SHK 18.0664 Authorial Intention
>I don't think we can talk about an implied author in the same sense in
>relation to Shakespeare's plays--or anyone else's plays, for that
>matter--since the author of a play is not in the same sense a "persona"
>of the work.
It must always be born in mind that Shakespeare did not publish his
plays. His "intent" was to get his living at the playhouse.
Authur Miller left us some fine exegetic pieces that illustrate both the
validity and the difficulty of "authorial intention."
>Miller has
>said that his "Crucible" was intended to be a commentary on the
>McCarthy-era "witch hunts," which certainly makes sense when you know
>his biography, even though it isn't immediately deducible within the
>confines of the play.
This is a particularly fine irony. Even though Macarthy was right about
everything he said and did, his work is till this day called a "witch
hunt," and Miller, who was just one of the rabble piling on with the
Murrow crowd, continues to be lionized for his "art" and his supposed
suffering. Though Willy Lohman will live for a long, long time, "The
Crucible" will come to be studied as an example of "art" affecting the
thought of the polity for ill.
-- All the best, R.A. Cantrell
[6]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: John Drakakis <
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Date: Friday, 5 Oct 2007 12:26:28 +0100
Subject: 18.0664 Authorial Intention
Comment: RE: SHK 18.0664 Authorial Intention
To respond to Michael Luskin, the problem is that we shall never know
what Shakespeare 'intended'. All we can be certain of is, to use Terence
Hawkes pregnant formulation, 'what WE mean by Shakespeare' (my
emphasis). Of course, we can indulge in historicist speculations about
the ways in which contemporary Elizabethan-Jacobean culture produced
meanings, but we would be ill advised to delude ourselves into thinking
that we can be totally objective in our speculations. In the same way
that we are always being most ideological when we think we aren't, so we
are being most 'presentist' when we think we are being objectively
historical. Ironically, the best historians think that too.
Ain't no such thing as simplicity in the adult world.
Cheers
John D
[7]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Joseph Egert <
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Date: Friday, 5 Oct 2007 12:57:53 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: 18.0657 Authorial Intention
Comment: Re: SHK 18.0657 Authorial Intention
Will Sharpe writes:
>"Texts have meanings, but they always come from
>collaborations between readers/viewers and authors."
Not so. As I see it,"meanings" may be taken in two senses: either the
intended meanings (here a useful tautology) by the authors, or the
extracted meanings/interpretations by the recipients of a text. These
two sets of meanings may coincide or diverge. In no case is there
collaboration.
Sally Drum writes:
>"AI [authorial intention], unless specifically stated by the
>author, dies with the author.[...] The creation leaves creator
>behind[...]"
Not so. The authorial intent, like any objective historical fact for any
given instant, remains immortal and eternal. This intent may indeed be
seen to change from instant to instant, depending on how fine is the
focus of examination---which is why any editor worth his salt is always
attempting to reconstruct an ideal copytext of intent (be it the
proofread final draft, the proofread fair copy, the proofread
promptbook, or the proofread later revision, etc) with hirself as the
final proofreader.
Tony Burton writes:
>"In the matter of 'authorial intention', don't we all take it as a given
>that the author was entirely competent and successful in expressing his
>or her intended meaning? That the text does in fact express whatever
>the author (or group of authors) intended, and the burden is on
>ourselves to be competent auditors or readers?"
I don't believe we all assume competence in expression of intent on the
part of the author. In fact, the author hirself, after penning draft
after draft, may be the one most dissatisfied with hir final product.
Or, am I misreading your expressed intent, Tony?
Cary Di Pietro writes:
>"I've suggested locating the text's agency in the act of interpretation
>itself, though perhaps 'agency' is not quite the right word (please
>don't mistake these tentative musings for doctrine-this is the luxury of
>Shaksper): we both act upon and are acted upon by the text's power to
>make meaning[...] An interpretation that is limited to statements
about, for >example, Shakespeare's intentions or expectations, is blind
to the wonderful
>complexity of meaning process. There you have it, a statement of the
>obvious."
In my view, the text by no means has agency. It therefore has no power
to make meaning. Only human agents are so empowered. While Carey D is
himself uncomfortable with his own formulaion, he nonetheless returns to
it again and again. The issue is not one of neglecting the "complexity
of meaning process," but rather of both discounting or minimizing human
agency in intending meaning and then emphasizing the futility of any
attempts to recapture or even approach that original meaning by finding,
sifting and weighing the available evidence despite our obvious
limitations. Scholarship, to this amateur, should seek to trace the
entire continuum, per Aristotle, from the authors' intended meanings to
the recipients' extracted meanings over the years up to the most
interesting musings of one Carey DiPietro.
Warm regards,
Joe Egert
[8]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Alan Horn <
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Date: Monday, 8 Oct 2007 21:53:20 +0900
Subject: 18.0664 Authorial Intention
Comment: Re: SHK 18.0664 Authorial Intention
Carol Barton proposes a non-trivial use for the term "implied author" in
discussing certain non-fiction works, giving the example of Milton's
polemics: "John Milton in any of his polemics is presumably the speaker
of his works, since he is not 'in character' per se: yet the distinction
between ethos (what the author actually knows or believes) and dianoia
(the posture he adopts for the purposes of his performance) is often
discernible in his writing."
I like this suggestion very much. In this case, the author, writing in
his own name, deliberately misrepresents his views or knowledge for
rhetorical purposes-not in an ironical inversion intended to be seen
through, but effectively implying a perspective that is not identical
with his own. Note that it involves the author's self-presentation in a
work and not merely a reader's construction of him; note too that we
have a definite reason here for distinguishing the implied author from
the author, not merely the possibility (or inevitability) that the
latter's intentions are not fully transparent to the reader.
The examples Carol gives come from non-fiction works (which is outside
the scope of narratology, where the term and our discussion of it
originated), but I think it can be usefully extended to cover analogous
phenomena in fiction. A novelist or dramatist might for various artistic
and extra-artistic reasons imply agreement in their work with
conventional social or moral values or political views or religious
doctrines (Marlowe?) that there is reason to believe they do not in fact
hold.
Unfortunately, as far as I know, this is the first time that anyone has
proposed this kind of restriction on the use of the term. I remain
skeptical about its usefulness in other cases, at least until someone
can provide a convincing example to the contrary.
The case of Arthur Miller as presented by Carol Barton seems to me to be
an example of whatever the opposite of an implied author might be: an
authorial perspective that the work itself FAILS to imply is externally
supplied by the actual author. In this reading Miller is not
distinguishing his views from that of the (un)implied author of his
plays; he is seeking to impose his own on him by fiat.
Alan Horn
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