A theory of literary interpretation: The problem of intentionalism

Are the intentions of the author relevant to literary criticism? Do the author's intentions determine the meaning of the literary work of art, or provide a standard by which its merit may be judged?; On the one hand, the intentionalist says that the meaning of a literary work is what its author meant, and that at least one measure of the work is the extent to which it instantiates the author's intentions.; On the other hand, the anti-intentionalist says that the work is a “verbal icon,” which derives its meaning not from the author's intentions but from the conventions of language, and which must be measured solely according to whether or not it “works.”; In this dissertation, my strategy is to show that the controversy is based upon a misapprehension of the aims of literature and of criticism. Given that the aim of criticism is to maximize aesthetic enjoyment, we must acknowledge that although every work assumes the character of a “verbal icon,” the conventions that govern meaning are subject to pressure from a variety of sources, one of which is our knowledge of the author's intentions. Further, while we certainly want to judge the work according to the extent to which it “works,” its efficacy is determined not just by the properties of the work itself, but by the context of its apprehension, which may include knowledge of auctorial intentions.; To prosecute this strategy, I expound the view that the aim of criticism is the maximization of aesthetic enjoyment and argue that an essential characteristic of literature is the potential to provoke an enjoyment that is distinct from other kinds of enjoyment. I then examine in detail the paper that originally sparked the controversy and five representative rejoinders, showing in each case how the authors have allowed a misconstruction of criticism to vitiate their conceptualization of the issue. My conclusion is that vis-á-vis literary criticism we must adopt a pluralistic view of the meaning and the merit of works of literary art that takes into account all of the factors that actually bear on our experience of literary works.