Authorial Intent and Self-Contradiction

Scott (who is not as patient as he looks) took note of a comment I made last year on a post on DYL that seems to stand in contradiction to more recent comments of mine. In the original post, Jessica raises the question of authorial intent in discussing the re-imagination of a prior creator's work. In comments there, I state something along the lines of:

I don’t see any problem with interpreting additional information into one’s perspective on literature and film. When I read a novel, I have almost no interest in what the author intended; my only concern is whether my personal experience of the text is satisfactory.

In response to Rich (Jessica's husband), who suggests that Jessica's lax response to the question of authorial intent poses certain (and potentially heretical) dangers if applied to Holy Writ, I respond with:

Your example, comparing Jessica’s view on lit to heresy if applied to Scripture is akin to comparing one’s liberty to prefer chocolate ice cream over sushi to one’s preference of one religion over another (making it a matter of taste). Because what’s at stake is so different, the comparisons cannot be made.

Scott points out that this seems to be at odds with recent comments I've made regarding the primacy of authorial intent in interpreting a text (mostly here and on Johnny T's site). Specifically, he quotes:

A question for you: if author intent does not concern us when we seek to arrive at Meaning, what does that mean for your biblical hermeneutic. It seems rather destructive to me, not caring what God actually meant. But then, maybe I’m putting words in your mouth.

Now then, how is our fiery The Dane to extricate himself from this tangled net of words? Can he possibly be free of contradiction? Or should we just say that he changed his mind and leave it at that? Or, more palatably, is he some babbling moron who just chooses a position based upon the roll of a d20 and rerolls every time a topic comes up? Not unlikely, but today I think we'll find a slightly different answer to the posed dilemma.

A big part of the answer comes when we consider that in the two places, I am talking about two different things. In the one case, I am talking about discovering a text's meaning. In the other case, I am talking about how I approach reading books and watching movies. The difference lies in one single piece of information: when devouring novels or movies, I rarely pay any thought to Meaning.

It's true. On a personal level, I don't care what literature or cinema means. I imbibe because I enjoy, not because I care to have a window into the soul of a stranger. Occasionally - and this is rare indeed - a story will so affect me that I'll become interested in what it means. In those cases, I doggedly pursue authorial intent. Because. Authorial intent is so intimate with Meaning that it cannot be overlooked.

So there we have it Scott. Where meaning is concerned, authorial intent is king. Where personal enjoyment is at the fore, meaning may or may not play any part at all and so authorial intent mileage will vary.

How this works in the details of my criticism of Rich (that bringing up Bible interpretation wasn't important) and my question to Johnny T (wondering how could he hold to the degradation of authorial intent and still interpret Scripture with "accuracy") is this:

Rich compared how Jessica approaches literature with a heretical approach to Scripture, though Jessica wasn't talking about Meaning but only about what she gets out of literature and movies. Johnny was talking about Meaning and texts. I maintain that they were talking about two different things. And from this, we may gather that yes, I definitely see Meaning and What One Gets Out of Something as being two entirely different creatures - that sometimes cross paths.

Meaning in Space

Over at Johnny T's a discussion/argument has been churning over the past couple months across a number of posts. This conversation has spanned a number of topics, but one of the more interesting to my mind has been our treatment of a text's Meaning and its relation to Authorial Intent. I tie them together inexorably, seeing that each text has one true meaning. Johnny T does not, opting to see multiple meanings per text. In his most recent post, on little horses, he asks me two questions:

How does the reader determine the intent of the author? If the intent of the author is unknown or unknowable, is the text meaningless?

I thought my answer might make good fodder for the thinking among you, so I'm reposting it here. Bon apetit.

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1) How does the reader determine the intent of the author?
I don't believe that the reader has the ability (on this earth) to determine infallibly the intent of any author. I think we interpret somewhere between understanding and misunderstanding. If we were to present this mathematically, it would look like:

perfect understanding > our interpretation ≥ misunderstanding

I think that with people who communicate well together, interpretations will fall more often along a curve dominating the Understanding side of things. People who do not communicate well (or people who know nothing of each other) will more often fall on the Misunderstanding side of things.

That said, I think that if the reader is interested* in receiving the communication effected by the author, he should engage in those activities that general lead toward a better understanding of intent. Some of the tools of such readers are research into an author's context, understanding of "common usage" of whichever language the author chooses to communicate in, a familiarity with potential deviations from common usage that the author is likely to engage, and best of all, some explanation or clarification from the author himself as to what he intended. These tools, while aiding in interpretation do not guarantee a correct interpretation**; they merely give us the best potential for running into the correct interpretation.

* I think it's fine if readers aren't interested in receiving the effected communication. There is nothing wrong with this. But. We cannot say they are interested in the text's meaning. They are rather more likely to be interested in giving the text meaning - which is an entirely different endeavor.

** by "correct interpretation" I'm speaking of author intent.

2) If the intent of the author is unknown or unknowable, is the text meaningless?
The text is not meaningless, but if we cannot ascertain intent then we cannot discover the text's meaning. Of course we can add whatever meaning we want, but that's our meaning, not the text's.

As an example, let's say I am in the depths of the Pacific, searching for the lost civilization of Mu. I find an ancient tablet and discover a symbol that looks roughly like this: <o>

Now I could add meaning to that and say that they Mulians must have some connection to Milo Rambaldi. But that would be me, the reader, transmitting meaning back upon the author. And as funny as that might be, it doesn't help me figure out what the symbol means. Not knowing anything about the author (who or when they lived, whether they were human, whether the mark was made by sentient beings or whether it was carved by time and chance), I cannot possibly decipher the symbol's meaning. It may be absolutely packed with meaning but none of that transmission of meaning reaches me. It's been obscured by its sheer lack of context.

So the short answer: if author intent is unknowable, then the text is not necessarily meaningless but meaning has been lost, perhaps irretrievably.