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/lit/ - Literature

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10288066 No.10288066 [Reply] [Original]

Can we judge a book or a work of art without the knowledge of the author?

>B-but death of the author!

Judge 4'22 by John Cage or Miro's lines for me then, Barthafag

>> No.10288084

>>10288066
4'33 fuck me

>> No.10288087

No. Even if you go in knowing nothing about the author, you have to infer things about them to make any sense of the text.

>> No.10288102

>>10288087
any wiki page for that fampai

>> No.10288110

>>10288066
4'33 signifies to me the opening out of artistic expression, from rigid forms to free combination of elements to the point where nothingness itself is art.

Done.

>> No.10288124

suspending the hermeneutic such that one can interpret a work with and without the author doesn't have to be a mutually exclusive endeavor

>> No.10288125

>>10288110
Is everything art?

>> No.10288141

>>10288125
I'd say anything can be made art, although that doesn't have a bearing on OP's question.

>> No.10288147

>>10288110
But 4'33 isn't supposed to be nothing, it's supposed to be the ambiance of the room the piece is being played at.

>> No.10288158

>>10288147
>isn't supposed
Supposed by whom? That's a very convenient use of the passive right there.

>> No.10288160

Does the importance of the knowledge of the author vary from work to work? Let's say Shakespeare and Blake. Many interpretations as far as I know do not devote particular attention to Shakespeare's life, whereas Blake's life and personal visions are often given precedence.

>> No.10288171

>>10288160
And to expand upon the question, does it really matter who Homer and Shakespeare are? If they were published anonymously, how would we judge their work? or as >>10288087
had said, would we make inferences about the author?

>> No.10288215
File: 93 KB, 1536x1343, T07573_10.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
10288215

What separates this from a urinal with graffiti? Is it not the knowledge of the author, or at least the knowledge that it has an author?

>> No.10288244

>>10288158
By Cage himself you autist.

>> No.10288261

>>10288215
engagement with the art-historical dialectic, which I suppose is pointed towards as a function of the author

>> No.10288274

>>10288244
>bet you can't interpret this thing without reference to the author!
>(interpretation without reference to the author)
>that doesn't match what the author said!

>> No.10288280
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10288280

>>10288261
Does a work of art necessitate an author? I believe that the sentence in pic would not be a poem unless someone declares it so. So I would take that the knowledge of the function of the author is paramount, even though it may be inferred? I'm losing myself

>> No.10288296

>>10288066
Death of the Author is post-modernist nonsense and has retroactively ruined the study of literature.

No, this 18th century Romantic-era novel probably doesn't say anything about Feminism or LGBT struggles, you fuckwits.

>> No.10288368

>>10288296
If a work written in the past can't say anything about contemporary concerns, why would you ever read or study anything written in the past? (or, as a logical consequence, why would you read or study anything at all?)

>> No.10288394

>>10288066
4'33"
>all rests is still a composition

>> No.10288419

>>10288368
The author always writes with a specific intent, even if that intent is just to entertain. A work of fiction is always a product of it's time, so looking upon it as one would a historical artifact is the way to go.

>> No.10288475

>>10288419
I don't see how that answers my question. 'The way to go' to what end? Why is it illegitimate to study literature in the context of contemporary concerns? Do you have any examples of a study which ignores such concerns? Because it seems frankly impossible to me- the critic or reader is a product of their time too, and will alway bring their concerns and interests to the table.

>> No.10288779

>>10288475
an easy example to blow out the absurdity (and lack of reflected perspective) of that guy's claim are proto-medieval theologians christianizing plato.

""No, this BC 4th century Classical-era text probably doesn't say anything about Christianity, you fuckwits.""

death of the author is no more than the articulation of the necessary openness of hermeneutics in regard to texts

>> No.10288817

>>10288066
>Can we judge a book or a work of art without the knowledge of the author?
you can, or you dont have to. they are two different fields of critical theory

>> No.10288892

>>10288368
Aesthetic pleasure you pleb.

>> No.10288947

>>10288087
Maybe if you're a homo.
But you can judge a book on its own merits

>> No.10288959

>>10288368
>if I can't use a work to further my ideological goals why even read it
The absolute STATE of modernity

>> No.10290442

>>10288817
Does po-mo entirely dismiss the author?

>> No.10290531

>>10290442
yes and no: if anything i don't think postmodernism would harbor pretensions towards any sort of interpretation definitively or 'entirely'. cf. eco's 'open text'

>> No.10290567

>>10288066
>Can we judge a book or a work of art without the knowledge of the author?
Do you mean "is there a book which can be judged without knowledge of the author?" or "can any book be judged without knowledge of the author?"

Personally I think you should take the author into account, then kill them afterwards. Context is almost always useful, but "because the author said so" shouldn't be a valid form of reasoning. Books can say more about a time and even about their own authors than the authors themselves intended them to; in that regard I think people should eventually move past the author.

>> No.10290587

"Death of the author" fags are the reductionists of the literary world. There is no difference between a theory-fag and Neil Degrasse Tyson.

>> No.10290596
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10290596

>>10288087
>read a passage with quality prose or some moment of introspection that moves you
>"This must have been written by X kind of person"
Really jogs the nog

>> No.10290615

>>10288124
THIS
H
I
S

>>10288296
Sorry, but literally nobody would say that an 18th century novel is pro-LGBT or something, you can shove your strawmen up your anus.

>>10288419
>looking upon it as one would a historical artifact is the way to go.
This is the greatest insult to art I've ever seen on 4chan.

>> No.10290625

>>10290596
a line by a parodist or one cloaked in irony is going to mean something other than a line of more "sincere" sentiment. Voltaire's "optimism" is not the same as Leibniz' optimism. Borges explores this in the short story 'Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote'

>> No.10290641

>>10290587
yeah,thing should mean just one thing at a time,fuck poetry is 2 hard

>> No.10290643

>>10290625

i was wondering if i should do a story called "Jorge Luis Borges, Author of Pierre Menard"

>> No.10290656

>>10288066
No

And that's not what death of the author means anyway

>> No.10290657

>>10290625
An author who writes a parody is not himself a parodist. He's the author of the parody. What you fail to understand is that you need not know what kind of person the author was to understand what the work is conveying.

A properly written parody requires no knowledge of the author's intent, so that's a terrible example.

>> No.10290660
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10290660

>>10290587
Alternatively, those who wish to delve into the author rather than the text are simply buying into the idea of celebrity and fetishizing it to the degree of considering the study to be scholarly, rather than a distraction.

>> No.10290662

>>10290643

(it would be a story about an author of our present defending his tricking some publisher to publish Pierre Menard under his own name and claiming some pretentious philosophical reason for it when he just wants an easy cash out)

>> No.10291538

>>10290567
>I think you should take the author into account, then kill them afterwards.
Thank you, that is good to know.

>> No.10291562

>>10288779
>death of the author is no more than the articulation of the necessary openness of hermeneutics in regard to texts
Very nicely put

>> No.10291572

>tfw you can't understand this post because you know nothing about the author

>> No.10291695

In general, no. Art often requires context.
For example Roman poets b.c wrote about crucifixion. It was interpreted by a student in my class as an allusion to Jesus. His interpretation is understandable, but wrong.

In another case a poet often wrote about a woman he called Anna. If you were to judge based on his work, you'd think he was "simply" in love. When you look up his bio and find that he was an obsessed stalker, his work changes in tone.

Then there's another poet, who struggled in poverty his whole life. He has written about it, yes, but based on single poems you wouldn't necessarily understand the allusions to hunger.

All in all, context helps interpretation, and it should always be favored over willfully ignoring the artist and his intent.

>> No.10291709

>>10288274
Who fucking cares you autist

>> No.10291718

>>10291695
Can it be said that one technically can make a judgment then, but that judgment might be stupid or invalid? Because the question is asking about the ability to judge, not the merit of the judgment. I hope this doesn't come off as sophistry.

>> No.10291754

>>10291718
Not that anon, but yeah, that's correct. Even on its own terms anon's case is heavily overstated.

I'd also disagree with the argument itself, though. Seems like people arguing for the importance of authorial intent always make a circular argument- they start by assuming that the goal of interpretation is to uncover the original author's intent, and then, surprise surprise, they discover that if you ignore the author you don't 'interpret correctly'. But that starting assumption is exactly the premise which Barthes and others challenge- so as an argument against Barthes, it's pure question-begging.

Eg anon says interpreting a text as about Jesus is 'wrong' (because of the historical context in which it was written). But that's purely based on the assumption that the only valid interpretation is one that explains authorial intent. If you're interested in how readers now respond to it, that point might be irrelevant.

On the other hand, if when the student offered their interpretation they referred to authorial intent or original context, then they were wrong on their own terms.

>> No.10291895

>>10288087
hp lovecraft called the cat n-word man !!

>> No.10291908

>>10291718
I'm that Anon. Yes, it is possible to judge a work of art without context. Sometimes there's no other way: I have a journal in front of me. I don't know the majority of these authors. I know their name and I can place them in our era, there's nothing else to go by, so I'm "stuck with" their work and not much else.

All in all I agree with >>10291754, except I'm biased towards judging by the author's intent. At my uni (and to a lesser extent, HS) we differentiated between analysis and interpretation. The difference is basically what other Anon said: the former relied on authorial intent, while the latter avoided it. A thorough essay would do both:
-authorial intent
-signs of that intent in the work
-my/popular interpretation (if it differs from authorial intent)
-what made me/others interpret it that way

Both have their uses. They both have merits depending on the questions asked. As other Anon said, if the question is how contemporary readers respond to Catullus (iirc), pointing out an allusion to Jesus is not without merit. Stating that he did not allude to Jesus however, should be a side note, as it's not really relevant to the question asked.

As for my opinion, I prefer judgement based on authorial intent when possible because it often adds another layer to art.

>> No.10291930

>>10290596
>writing style does not exist and people do not make individualistic style choices for their prose

>> No.10291937

Knowledge of the author is a romantic meme.
I don't need to know anything about the life of Bach to like, and understand to its depths, the Well tempered Clavier. I just need to listen to it and learn to play it. Information about Bach life adds nothing to a fugue

>> No.10291994

>>10291908
This post is a good post

>> No.10292008

>>10288066
No, you gotta know if it is by a Jew.

>> No.10292123

>>10288296
>>10290615
I could name a dozen 18th century novels that depict and say something about gays and homoeroticism

>> No.10292143

>>10288296
That's just one (mis)use of death of an author, and you'd get a foot in your ass for pulling that bullshit at any respectable university.

American academia is either beyond saving thanks to pseudo-feminist/liberal bullshit, that's a strawman.

>> No.10292242

>>10292123
Sodomy =/ modern conception of homosexuality
Shame that the open depictions of sexuality and general bawdiness you find in 18th century literature faded out in the 19th. It would have been great to have that openness in the peak of 19th century realism, with George Eliot, Tolstoy or Henry James dissecting sex.

>> No.10292355

Side note, does Death of the Author mean that all interpretations are valid as long as they don't blatantly contradict the source itself - so is it essentially a hermetical carte blanche? Are some interpretations more valuable/ hold more ground than others despite this claim?

>> No.10292375

>>10292355
I'd suggest you read the article. I'd say it suggests the former but not necessarily the latter, but I'm no expert.

It's also pretty annoying that people always want to argue with Barthes when The Intentional Fallacy deals with similar issues in a much clearer, less French and impressionistic way. Barthes is a known riddler.

>> No.10292382

>>10292375
...I mean it doesn't state whether some interpretations are better than others, but it seems to open that possibility. I'd say what it really denies is that anyone can offer a final, decisive and irrefutable interpretation of a text.

>> No.10292442

>>10292375
This is really stupid, but can there be a misreading of The Death of the Author if all interpretations are valid?

>> No.10292451

>>10292442
welcome to post-modernism

>> No.10292456

>>10292451
What arguments can be made that The Death of the Author can't be applied to scientific works?

>> No.10292482

>>10292456
I feel like you're just discovering the existence of scepticism

>> No.10292497

>>10292456
well I haven't thought about it much but I'd think that theses proceeding from data insulates them somewhat from misrepresentation insofar that they are quantified. even then, interpretation and meta-interpretation of the quantifiable is open once they leave the realm of being pure abstraction into models that people are meant to interpret

>> No.10292500

>>10292482
I mean, this is the only real time I'm letting Barthes in my ass; before that I've only considered his influence in literary criticism.

>> No.10292774

>>10291572
what did he mean by this?

>> No.10293316

>>10292774

>>10291572 is a known faggot. Must've alluded to his love of sucking dick.

>> No.10293549
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10293549

>>10288125

>> No.10294497

>>10293549
woah....

>> No.10295821

>>10291937
what about the romantics

>> No.10297027

bump

>> No.10297057

>>10295821
They thought art was about the personal expression of the artist rather than tradesmen providing goods to order for customers.

>> No.10297944

>>10288147
Well, all the noises that occur in that period by audience members and whatnot

>> No.10299542

>>10290442
Dismisses its authority, not the author entirely.