The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 18.0687 Friday, 12 October 2007
From: Carol Barton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Wednesday, 10 Oct 2007 18:56:14 -0400
Subject: 18.0680 Authorial Intention
Comment: Re: SHK 18.0680 Authorial Intention
Larry Weiss remarks in part that "A human act has three essential
elements, viz: Motive, Intent, and Conduct (not "to act, to do and to
perform"). In other words, we are all subject to a sort of behavioral
inertia; we do nothing until acted upon by an outside stimulus (motive),
which inspires us to want to do something about it (intent) and then, as
the last element in the chain, we engage in the desired conduct to
satisfy or remove the motivational stimulus. So, if you see someone
drink a glass of water, you may confidently assume that she wanted to do
so (intent), and with slightly less certainly assume that she was
thirsty (motive). The first inference is just as valid if she drank a
glass of wine, but we cannot ascribe the motive to thirst with the same
degree of confidence-she might have wanted to savor the bouquet, get
tipsy, etc."
But therein lies the rub, Counsel. Suppose the reason the person was
drinking the glass of water was that someone standing behind the
individual had coerced him or her into doing so--at knifepoint, though
you couldn't see the blade--knowing that one can actually die from
drinking too much water?
Like a jury attempting to evaluate criminal intent ("premeditation") in
a murder trial, the best we can do with regard to establishing authorial
intent is make what seem to us to be reasonable inferences from the data
available to us: about the contextual legitimacy (verite), about the
appropriateness of connotation vs. denotation in the period in question,
about possible historical or biographical influences, about the author's
known beliefs or religious or political convictions--and so on. But we
can never know for certain that "that's what Shakespeare meant," any
more than the jury who acquits or convicts can be positive "beyond a
shadow of a doubt" what the murderer's ultimate motives were. A
preponderance of circumstantial evidence may be against him or her--and
the murderer may go free, or the innocent accused be convicted--but the
only one who has any hope of knowing why he did what he did is the
individual (and even he may be acting on psychological impulses of which
he himself is not entirely conscious). We can know that Jack the Ripper
killed prostitutes . . . but whether he did it because his mother was
one, or his sister had been abducted and forced to become one, or he had
an unrequited (or impotent) passion for one who rejected or mocked him,
we can't say (though any or all of those motives are plausible).
It has always seemed to me that Shakespeare wanted (intended) for every
reader/audience member to see his or her own piggies in the clouds--a
"mirror up to nature," whatever that individual's nature might be. But I
don't know that for fact, either.
Best to all,
Carol
_______________________________________________________________
S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List
Hardy M. Cook, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The S H A K S P E R Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net>
DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the
opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the
editor assumes no responsibility for them.
