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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
 Posted - 05/30/2005 : 13:22:10 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dude
The analysis of writing, looking for meaning other than the obvious, has always seemed a self flagellating (or masturbatory) excercise to me.
To my way of thinking writers have one of two intents when they put pen to paper, to entertain or inform.
Dude, was King Lear written to entertain or inform? If entertain, why is it so depressing? If inform, what could a 400 year old play still have to tell us? Really, Dude, what's the point of any work of art? Do you shrug everything off as mere "entertainment," just mindless diversion?
quote:
I have serious doubts that most writers fill their work with hidden meaning and deliberately obtuse symbolisms. The search for such things is pointless, because no two people really get the same thing from reading the same paragraph.
Well, there is no question that authors do purposely insert symbolism into their writing. I'm not exactly sure how you could even doubt that.
But you miss the point of analysis if you think it's only to tease out obtuse metaphors hidden in the text by the author. It's an attempt to quantify what about a book has meaning. Literary meaning. Artistic meaning. Human meaning. It's both discovery and affirmation. It's closer to philosophical inquiry than it is mathematics, but that isn't to say literary analysis doesn't have any rules. You can't simply make up anything you like, but obviously you filter the work though your personal biases and affinities. That's why the search for such things is so engaging, important, and timeless--because no two people really get the same thing from reading the same paragraph.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 05/30/2005 14:05:26 |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 05/30/2005 : 19:41:04 [Permalink]
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quote:
Really, Dude, what's the point of any work of art?
All art is purely subjective in the context of meaning that it conveys to the person "using" it.
quote:
Do you shrug everything off as mere "entertainment," just mindless diversion?
No. But I know better than to look for nonsensical "meaning" in art. If you read a book and enjoy it, or learn something from it (by learn I mean it in the broadest sense, from gaining insight into how somebody else sees the world to specific factual data), what more can be said about it? It is dumb, imo, to try and analyze works for "meaning" because "meaning" derived from art is completely subjective.
And I also use "entertain" in a broad sense. Not in the strawman-ish trivial sense that you are arguing against.
quote:
Well, there is no question that authors do insert purposely insert symbolism into their writing. I'm not exactly sure how you could even doubt that.
Sure they do. It is much cooler to describe a quite field covered with newly fallen snow and a gentle breeze causing the falling flakes to twirl, than to merely say "the field was quiet and tranquil."
But beyond that, it is mindless to sit around and say shit like "the snowy field represents blah blah blah blah." Because it means something different to each person who reads it, and it is highly unlikely that the specific intent of the author (if there is even any) is what any other person will get out of these supposedly hidden meanings and symbolism.
Just my 2c on the matter 
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 05/30/2005 : 20:47:22 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dude
No. But I know better than to look for nonsensical "meaning" in art. If you read a book and enjoy it, or learn something from it (by learn I mean it in the broadest sense, from gaining insight into how somebody else sees the world to specific factual data), what more can be said about it? It is dumb, imo, to try and analyze works for "meaning" because "meaning" derived from art is completely subjective.
And I also use "entertain" in a broad sense. Not in the strawman-ish trivial sense that you are arguing against.
Yes, well it was you who called my chosen field of study a "masturbatory" exercise. Not sure that arguing against that makes me guilty of erecting any strawmen. They don't often award college degrees for masterbation, so, rather than just be offended outright, I thought I might try to explain what exactly literary critism was.
But honestly, you denigrating the value of my field is something like the creationists referring to evolution as pseudoscience. I'm sure you might have had some exposure to it in high school, but don't mistake your lack of interest or effort as having anything to do with any failing within the subject itself. You would have learned different had you bothered to pursue it. Your opinion is just too uninformed to matter much.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 05/30/2005 23:25:00 |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2005 : 00:49:07 [Permalink]
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quote:
But honestly, you denigrating the value of my field is something like the creationists referring to evolution as pseudoscience. I'm sure you might have had some exposure to it in high school, but don't mistake your lack of interest or effort as having anything to do with any failing within the subject itself. You would have learned different had you bothered to pursue it. Your opinion is just too uninformed to matter much.
Well, I thought about just telling you to lighten up but the condescending nature of this paragraph is way over the top. I will refrain from commenting or responding to the insults however.
You are overreacting.
quote:
Yes, well it was you who called my chosen field of study a "masturbatory" exercise.
I have not said that the study of literature is without value, only that the search for concealed meanings and "interpreting" symbolism used by others is. Without a note from the author, how do you know what they meant to say? You don't, and you can't. To pretend that you can is masturbatory.
Which, again, is not to say that the study of literature is without value. Especially with older works where a knowledge of the historical context is essential to understanding the work. It is always valuable to understand how the world was viewed by those who came before us.
For someone who allegedly studies the writing of others, you seem to be failing miserably in your interpretations of my writings in this thread.
Be offended by my opinion if you like, but I hope you understand that your not liking my opinion doesn't render it "uninformed". It is actually ironic isn't it? You claiming that my opinion is "uninformed" but you have no real idea of what(education, reading, etc) actually informs my opinion...
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2005 : 10:36:21 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dude
Be offended by my opinion if you like, but I hope you understand that your not liking my opinion doesn't render it "uninformed". It is actually ironic isn't it? You claiming that my opinion is "uninformed" but you have no real idea of what(education, reading, etc) actually informs my opinion...
I have only this thread to go on, in which you demonstrate a profound ignorance of the subject upon which you pontificate. First you admit that authors include symbols, then provide an example that is actually free of any.
In The Masque of the Red Death, Edgar Allan Poe's story takes place in seven color-coded rooms. For this particular work, understanding the symbolism behind the number, order, and hue of the rooms is absolutely necessary for a complete appreciation of the work. It isn't arbitrary or pointless or masturbatory.
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I have not said that the study of literature is without value, only that the search for concealed meanings and "interpreting" symbolism used by others is. Without a note from the author, how do you know what they meant to say? You don't, and you can't. To pretend that you can is masturbatory.
Again you demonstrate that you have no idea what literary criticism entails. No one "pretends" to know what the author intended. As a point of fact, it often matters very little whether the author intended something or not. But each author does not create their own symbolic vocabulary. They instead draw on a broad array of archetypes and themes that stretch as far back as the beginning of writing, and it is these which can be isolated from the author's work.
It is not a matter of me simply disagreeing with your opinion, it's that your opinion is unfounded. You have demonstrated this. I honestly don't understand what you think you might accomplish by continuing.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 05/31/2005 13:41:39 |
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Wendy
SFN Regular
USA
614 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2005 : 13:12:48 [Permalink]
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Welcome to SFN, slipnduck!
While I read for the same reasons Dude says he does, I do believe there is often meaning and symbolism included by the author. I don't believe it's the reader's job to figure out if there is, or what it is unless they want to try do so. I had an English teacher who insisted everything has meaning, and he did claim to know what it was. I found his class exhausting.
I seldom take the time to look beyond the surface. When I was reading this book, however, it just came naturally. It seemed (to me) that the author was attempting to convey more than just what he wrote.
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Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do on a rainy afternoon.
-- Susan Ertz
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2005 : 13:47:04 [Permalink]
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quote:
As a point of fact, it often matters very little whether the author intended something or not.
That statement is exactly what I'm talking about.
The whole idea that you, reading the work of another person, can somehow lend it meaning and "interpret" the symbolism in ways unintended by the person who's work it is.... is asinine. Regardless of whatever "archetype" may be present. Add in the drifting of definitions/meanings over time, and it adds another layer of asininity to such excercises.
It is asinine because meaning or intent beyond what the writer conveys directly is subjective. No two people will get the exact same thing from it.
Just because you are pissed off because you think I am dissing your chosen field doesn't render my opinion of certain aspects of it [your field] meaningless. Anything that requires interpretation is subjective.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2005 : 14:24:50 [Permalink]
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Great, Dude. If you're so hellbent on sticking to the absurdity that subjective is the exact same as made-up bullshit then what more can be said? Perhaps you could start a letter writing campaign to universities informing them that History, Economics, Philosophy, Psychology, Ecology, and every other discipline that deals in a degree of subjectivity is asinine. Explain to them why everything but the hard sciences is an exercise in masterbation. I'm done listening to your blather--I'm sorry, "opinion."
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 05/31/2005 14:36:29 |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2005 : 16:45:02 [Permalink]
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We are talking past one another.
You're pissed off because you think I'm dismissing your entire field as meaningless drivel (a straw-man to kick if there ever was one).
I am obviously failing to communicate my point well enough for you to understand, or pehaps you'd understand it if you weren't agitated by my remarks. I dunno.
Let e try it this way, I'll use literature as an example:
Extracting meaning from the words of another is perfectly acceptable. Right up to the point where you begin to add meaning of your own. The "interpretation" of abstract symbolism, in instances where the meaning and context are subjective, is asinine.
You read a book and get something from it. I read the same book and get something different from it. Who's interpretation is "right"?
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2005 : 17:25:22 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dude
You read a book and get something from it. I read the same book and get something different from it. Who's interpretation is "right"?
Depends. You would have to argue your interpretation, as well as cite supporting evidence from the text. Multiple interpretations can be valid. One could argue a communist perspective, while another could argue ancient celtic symbolism. Both could be "right" in that they could both be valid treatments. Neither would have to necessarily have anything to do with the original author's intentions. If it's there, it's there.
But you seem to be under the impression that literary analysis means that whatever you think a book means is valid. It doesn't work that way. There are rules and standards that must be followed. That's why I compared it to philosophy. You can't just walk up to your teacher and go "Whatever, man, my opinion is just as valid as yours." He'd fail you in a heartbeat. There is a great deal of critical thinking involved in critical analysis of literature. You have to be well evidenced and logically consistent if you expect your interpretation to hold up to scrutiny. You aren't automatically correct just because you formed an opinion. It can still be determined if you're flat out wrong. That's why I maintain that you don't understand the process at it's most basic level, yet you insist you do.
quote:
Extracting meaning from the words of another is perfectly acceptable. Right up to the point where you begin to add meaning of your own. The "interpretation" of abstract symbolism, in instances where the meaning and context are subjective, is asinine.
Bullshit. To give one example, some critics have pointed out that the One Ring in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy can be read as a metaphor for the atom bomb, despite the fact that the technology wasn't yet invented when he wrote his book. Does it matter if that isn't what Tolkien intended? It's adds a layer to his novel that wouldn't otherwise be there. Another reading could treat the book as an ecological treatise, or another as a warning against mechanized warfare, or another as a spiritual journey. None of these interpretations in any way denegrate the fact that the book is a tale about a battle with goblins and elves and hobbits. These readings exist on top of that story and serve to give the book depth and resonance.
Why do you think some works are considered "timeless?" It's because they are rich that way...they can be viewed from multiple angles with manifold results. That's why these works stay relevant at all. The only thing I see that's asinine is denying this fact. The world of literature is not as dead and sterile as you would have it, nor is there any conceivable reason to believe it should be.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 05/31/2005 17:32:49 |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2005 : 17:38:35 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dude
The "interpretation" of abstract symbolism, in instances where the meaning and context are subjective, is asinine.
Perhaps the disconnect here is with the adjective "abstract."
There was an article in a recent Skeptical Inquirer about people today who find evidence of extra-terrestrial visitation in religious paintings of 600 years ago. It seems, however, that including odd-looking elliptical clouds in one's art meant something back then, and today's UFO "researchers" haven't bothered to learn art history to find out what. Instead, they ascribe a wholly different meaning to symbols which would have been widely recognized by the artists' contemporaries. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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slipnduck
New Member
2 Posts |
Posted - 06/01/2005 : 03:01:55 [Permalink]
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I disagree Dude. I'd be very dissapointed with a book if after finishing the last page I simply thought, "ah that was nice", and nothing more. Good books always leave me thinking about them afterwards, contemplating the story and the way it was told, and perhaps sparking a desire to find out more about the subject matter.
I'm not suggesting you should look for meaning where there is none just for the sake of it, but just because a certain meaning or message isn't spelled out and made glaringly obvious doesn't mean it is not there. In some cases the author credits his readers with enough inteligence to be able to notice suttle things that aren't stuck up like sign posts, and uses such things to leave his readers questioning -stoking their imaginations.
Otherwise you may as well read Moby Dick and when asked about it simply say that it's a story about hunting whales. Well yes it is, but it's also a hell of a lot more.
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Siberia
SFN Addict
Brazil
2322 Posts |
Posted - 06/01/2005 : 05:46:09 [Permalink]
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My opinion can be pretty much summed down to this, by a talent greater than my own.
quote:
quoted from Oscar Wilde's Portrait of Dorian Gray
The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim. The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.
The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography.
Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without
being charming. This is a fault.
Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated.
For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things
mean only beauty.
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.
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No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved. No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything. Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art. Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art. From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor's craft is the type. All art is at once surface and symbol.
Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital. When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself.
We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.
All art is quite useless.
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"Why are you afraid of something you're not even sure exists?"
- The Kovenant, Via Negativa
"People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs."
-- unknown
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