Pound vs. Eliot

[jdeirmend]

fuck it.

the reader doesn't read with my eyes and i don't read with the readers eyes.

I'm not sure what you mean by saying that "authorial intent has no effect at all on the actual words." That seems either carelessly phrased or downright false.

it has no effect because the bastard poet is probably telling a fabricated story. is every thing you write the truth? if not then how the fuck are we to distinguish lies from truth unless we see some external source material. it's one of the reasons i/we tell people "don't tell us what the poem is about after they write a preface or footnote. it psychologically taints the reading of the fucking poem. what's the point of feedback if we've already been told what it's about.

i can pick 10, no 50 poems most people wouldn't have a fucking clue as to what's being said, most people who read poetry don't even look beyond the words for hidden depth, they don't try or want to understand any metaphor, they read it and say "oh that's a lovely fucking poem. they don't start thinking mmmm, 'i bet because of the suffering in this poem she's took it up the arse a few time.' or 'this is a happy poem about kids, she must have 4 of them 2 of each and be married to great guy. we write happy poems and sad poems, dark and light poems, what type of person are we. the truth is we don't know, it's all guesswork without real facts.

poets write poetry, good poets write good poetry, seamus heany  wrote some good poetry [the titles escape me. he died a short while ago, all i know of him is this, he's fuckin dead, he's a man, he's irish, he wore glasses and he was a pretty fuckin good poet i didn't get any of this from his poetry ok maybe him being irish from the name ( it's still a guess though) i never felt his pain of love or hope, i only read of my own in his words. were his words true, i didn't care or need to know. it seems you do need to know the poet, it's a shame really because to as certain as you seem to be of who they are would require more than a psychic, it would require an act of god.

that
s my last word so fill your boots:J:.

Billy, point taken. But the dichotomy between truth/falsity you are presenting is superficial. Every lie, in some roundabout way, points to the very truth it tries to hide. That's all I've been trying to say. Sometimes, we can't help but to see the trace of the deeper mask that is the persona of a writer, behind the mask he dons in the act of writing. This is what often lends reading poetry and poetic fiction its poignancy for me. This is also why Hesse is one of my favorite authors: for him, writing was a way of wrestling with himself, as he projected all of his own struggles, pains, triumphs and hopes into many of the protagonists of his various novels.

Personally, this sort of esotericism is the sort of stuff that I live for. It is not exclusive to poetry, and often requires a godly amount of patience, meditation, re-reading and attentiveness. I am admittedly lacking in all of these. Sometimes, however, it all gels together, and I can see what lies beneath.

I'm convinced that the best and most devoted readers among us can ferret this sort of stuff out, even if I can plainly admit that I'm really only aspiring at this point. But what I'm talking about is the hidden gold within poetry that makes it so terribly rich, and keeps weirdos like me coming back to it, preferentially, over other forms of literature.

Richad Wollheim, a philosopher I admire, used to go to a museum in San Francisco, and sit for literally hours at a time in front of paintings. He would say that the painting would only start to get good after 45 minutes. I have to imagine he was seeing something, in those instances, than what he was projecting onto the paintings. What that something was, I think, at least in some cases, was at least a partial vision of the soul of the painting's author.

[milo]

To me, you can't really know what sort of a fruit you're dealing with, until you cast your gaze upon the tree its fallen from. Even then, it takes some familiarity with the entire orchard to really know what's going on. That is to say: the approach I advocate and attempt to embody isn't merely psychoanalytic. It is also hermeneutic.

Granted, I'm an amateur, and this thread sprung from a desire to write about poets and poetry as much as anything. My speculations on these matters, I can readily concede, are just that: speculations. That doesn't mean that they are all completely ill founded or entirely without merit.

You think this sort of behavior is a distraction from properly "literary" discussion. That this position essentially ignores the most significant developments in literary theory in the past 40 or so years is something that seems to give you absolutely zero pause.

You (and many others that need to justify a position) believe that writing /needs/ an author to exist, to have purpose or meaning.

It's just not the case. Authorial intent has no effect at all on the actual words. Meaning is determined by the /reading/ not the writing, a good author observes and reports. If an effective analysis is dependent on knowing the author (other than cultural and social issues surrounding the times) than the writing fails.

But writing does need a writing author, in the same way that speech needs a speaking subject. If you're going to assert otherwise, offer some reasons to back your position up, which seems extreme to the point of absurdity

If you need examples you can look at any words ever written and consider how the words would change if they were author less but you are clearly impatient. Start with Beowulf then. Would the poem suddenly become better if it had an author?

. Furthermore, I'm not sure what you mean by saying that "authorial intent has no effect at all on the actual words." That seems either carelessly phrased or downright false.

it is both perfectly phrased and true. You need to slow down and chew the words before you respond. The meaning g and effect of words is determined by the reading, regardless of an author's wishes, the words need to stand alone.

[jdeirmend]

"If you need examples you can look at any words ever written and consider how the words would change if they were author less but you are clearly impatient. Start with Beowulf then. Would the poem suddenly become better if it had an author?"

Beowulf was an epic poem that was told who knows how many times before someone decided to write it. It was an oral tradition. Of course it doesn't have a single author. For this reason, it does not have identity as a work of literature in the same way that, say, anything written by a singular, modern poet does. But if you want to say that the intent of every teller of Beowulf, in whatever sense of the word, didn't play a role in determining its meaning when it was told - or even when it was finally written - you would still need to offer some reason for me to believe that.

Around the campfire, for instance, does anyone ever tell the same ghost story exactly the same way, even if it's the same person telling it twice? And yet, per your example of Beowulf, there is some sense in which it remains the same story? Don't tell me that something unique about the mind of the teller, in such a case, doesn't play into the execution of the tale. This could range from the fact that the teller's just drank a shit ton of coffee, gotten stoned, is a woman and is PMSing, broke up with his girlfriend, whatever.

Besides that: inasmuch as this thread began with my confessedly amateur psychologizing of the writings of Pound and Eliot, there is some precedent here for me to say this much. We are discussing "writing" in the modern sense of that which is written by an individual, and more particularly, the "growing inner self" of the modern individual. You seem to be lost on the context informing the word "writing" here.

"It is both perfectly phrased and true. You need to slow down and chew the words before you respond. The meaning and effect of words is determined by the reading, regardless of an author's wishes, the words need to stand alone."


But words are the production, within the context of this present discussion, of an author. And the idea that the author's intent doesn't factor into the words and their meaning is absurd, particularly in the case of modern writers, who practice the craft of writing as individuals first and foremost, workshopping etc. notwithstanding.

If that weren't the case, how can we make sense of you urging me, after all, to "slow down and chew the words before responding?" I could just sit here and tell you that my words stand on their own, and that you're committing some kind of interpretive fallacy by imputing my responsibility for them and their meaning. But that would be hogwash, because I understood you well enough, at least in this instance. Not only that: it would be hogwash because the words are mine in some sense that is hardly trivial. You and I are, after all, communicating, mind to mind, through writing. Your intent, as much as mine, certainly informs what meanings our words have, both as readers of each other's words, and as writers of our own. If the last tidbit weren't the case, misinterpretation and misunderstanding wouldn't even be possible.

Now, for writing to "stand on its own" is a tricky thing. I'm not saying that it's a meaningless idea, but you have to appreciate the paradox: to be able to appreciate timelessness in a work, a reader must be informed about many contingent, timely things. Earlier in this discussion, you conceded to this point. You more or less claimed that writing can be timeless, and that if we have to know something more than a minimum of the history and culture from which a writing originates to understand it, it fails.

But just what constitutes that minimum? Not only does it vary from work to work, but even with canonical works that allegedly "stand on their own," different readers will still pull away different meanings. This doesn't mean that timelessness is impossible. It just means that it often takes a damn well read person to recognize it, and even then, there is no guarantee that such a person will.

You seem to ascribe to the idea that all true or worthwhile literary propositions are timelessly so. While I have admiration for anyone who has the courage to venture this sort of a view, particularly in our time, the view itself cannot be true if it is made global in this way. Rather does it end up being brash, pretentious, and in the last analysis, false.

In fact, to see the timeless truth, say, in a piece of truly classical literature, the reader often has to wade through traps that the author him/herself sets, in the form of contingent distractions, which can feature as potent literary / rhetorical devices. For instance, the fact that Alcibiades is so desperately trying to get into Socrates' pants in the Symposium is funny enough to distract me from the real meat, which is timeless in comparison to the trifling, farcical elements of the dialogue. However, when viewed aright, the lesson Plato is offering with Alcibiades is profound, even if at first blush, his figure is a literary eyesore. The point is, though, Plato might have used something or someone else as a literary device.

Anyways, change the quantifier to "some," and we're good.

[milo]

"If you need examples you can look at any words ever written and consider how the words would change if they were author less but you are clearly impatient. Start with Beowulf then. Would the poem suddenly become better if it had an author?"

Beowulf was an epic poem that was told who knows how many times before someone decided to write it. It was an oral tradition. Of course it doesn't have a single author. For this reason, it does not have identity as a work of literature in the same way that, say, anything written by a singular, modern poet does. But if you want to say that the intent of every teller of Beowulf, in whatever sense of the word, didn't play a role in determining its meaning when it was told - or even when it was finally written - you would still need to offer some reason for me to believe that.

What I am saying is that the intent of whoever came up with Beowulf is irrelevant, intent doesn't change or charge words

"It is both perfectly phrased and true. You need to slow down and chew the words before you respond. The meaning and effect of words is determined by the reading, regardless of an author's wishes, the words need to stand alone."


But words are the production, within the context of this present discussion, of an author. And the idea that the author's intent doesn't factor into the words and their meaning is absurd, particularly in the case of modern writers, who practice the craft of writing as individuals first and foremost, workshopping etc. notwithstanding.

Intent cannot change the meaning of the words, the words themselves need to stand alone. This reminds me of an interview with my old friend, Julie Carter, read it, and think about it slowly, especially the part about the eyebrows:

http://www.avatarreview.net/AV10/Miller_interview.htm

[abu nuwas]

Milo,
Leaving aside the other clap-trap, do you not have a problem, when you say ''It is both perfectly phrased and true''? For whom, apart from the irrelevant author, could they be perfectly phrased? And how is it possible for that same irrelevant author to assert that his readers find one and the same truth in it? Cannot your reader with the long name say 'That's just your narrative'? (or even -- 'vieux jeu'?

[milo]

Milo,
Leaving aside the other clap-trap, do you not have a problem, when you say ''It is both perfectly phrased and true''? For whom, apart from the irrelevant author, could they be perfectly phrased? And how is it possible for that same irrelevant author to assert that his readers find one and the same truth in it? Cannot your reader with the long name say 'That's just your narrative'? (or even -- 'vieux jeu'?

Brilliant. Thank you. Sometimes i feel all irony has left the universe.

[jdeirmend]

What I am saying is that the intent of whoever came up with Beowulf is irrelevant, intent doesn't change or charge words

I get what you're saying. You keep asserting it, and you offer no argument for its truth. I've offered a slew of counterargument that you seem to be ignoring entirely. I don't care to repeat myself at this point, but to ask you a question: what forms sentences besides intent?

I'm tempted to say that we're equivocating on the sense of intent, here, with you using it in the sense of what the author desired his work to be, and myself focusing on the mentation/intentionality of the writer. But I'm not going to commit fully to that, because these two aspects, I believe, belong to a still more general sense of "intent." In its most general form, intent is simply purposive desire. It is practically interchangeable, in this context, with consciousness.

Intent cannot change the meaning of the words, the words themselves need to stand alone. This reminds me of an interview with my old friend, Julie Carter, read it, and think about it slowly, especially the part about the eyebrows:

You haven't explicated what you mean at all by a work "standing alone."

I invited you to consider that there is a paradox at work here. To see that a work of literature has something timeless to say requires a sensitivity to context that proceeds by acknowledging, respecting, and in some sense, participating in the temporality of the same. (Incidentally, this is a condition on the possibility of the meaningful translation of writing. So if you think that there can be better or worse translations of things, let alone successful, functional ones, then you implicitly agree with this statement).

To speak, write, read and comprehend any particular language requires an awareness of rules, norms and truths, some of which aren't timeless at all. No particular language, no grammar in and of itself is timeless. Rather does each have its sense, in some necessary part, in and by a series of contingent conventions.

You seem to be insistent on ignoring this line of argument, which I previously presented to you, as well.

[milo]

What I am saying is that the intent of whoever came up with Beowulf is irrelevant, intent doesn't change or charge words

I get what you're saying. You keep asserting it, and you offer no argument for its truth. I've offered a slew of counterargument that you seem to be ignoring entirely. I don't care to repeat myself at this point, but to ask you a question: what forms sentences besides intent?

I'm tempted to say that we're equivocating on the sense of intent, here, with you using it in the sense of what the author desired his work to be, and myself focusing on the mentation/intentionality of the writer. But I'm not going to commit fully to that, because these two aspects, I believe, belong to a still more general sense of "intent." In its most general form, intent is simply purposive desire. It is practically interchangeable, in this context, with consciousness.

Intent cannot change the meaning of the words, the words themselves need to stand alone. This reminds me of an interview with my old friend, Julie Carter, read it, and think about it slowly, especially the part about the eyebrows:

You haven't explicated what you mean at all by a work "standing alone."

I invited you to consider that there is a paradox at work here. To see that a work of literature has something timeless to say requires a sensitivity to context that proceeds by acknowledging, respecting, and in some sense, participating in the temporality of the same. (Incidentally, this is a condition on the possibility of the meaningful translation of writing. So if you think that there can be better or worse translations of things, let alone successful, functional ones, then you implicitly agree with this statement).

To speak, write, read and comprehend any particular language requires an awareness of rules, norms and truths, some of which aren't timeless at all. No particular language, no grammar in and of itself is timeless. Rather does each have its sense, in some necessary part, in and by a series of contingent conventions.

You seem to be insistent on ignoring this line of argument, which I previously presented to you, as well.

Why you would ascribe a cliché argument like "literature is timeless" to me is baffling, moreso to anyone who has actually bothered reading anything I have ever written(!)

It is clear you are not bothering to actually read and understand what is being written even after I provided that wonderful interview with julie carter.

You just studied discerning authorial intent and you are excited about it. Good. The rest of us have been unlearning it for a decade or more now.

Our new rallying cry is "a writer's job is to observe and report, meaning is left to readers."

But why can't you leap frog us and unlearn this already? Because you haven't learned it yet and it is trickier than it sounds.

[jdeirmend]

What I am saying is that the intent of whoever came up with Beowulf is irrelevant, intent doesn't change or charge words

I get what you're saying. You keep asserting it, and you offer no argument for its truth. I've offered a slew of counterargument that you seem to be ignoring entirely. I don't care to repeat myself at this point, but to ask you a question: what forms sentences besides intent?

I'm tempted to say that we're equivocating on the sense of intent, here, with you using it in the sense of what the author desired his work to be, and myself focusing on the mentation/intentionality of the writer. But I'm not going to commit fully to that, because these two aspects, I believe, belong to a still more general sense of "intent." In its most general form, intent is simply purposive desire. It is practically interchangeable, in this context, with consciousness.

Intent cannot change the meaning of the words, the words themselves need to stand alone. This reminds me of an interview with my old friend, Julie Carter, read it, and think about it slowly, especially the part about the eyebrows:

You haven't explicated what you mean at all by a work "standing alone."

I invited you to consider that there is a paradox at work here. To see that a work of literature has something timeless to say requires a sensitivity to context that proceeds by acknowledging, respecting, and in some sense, participating in the temporality of the same. (Incidentally, this is a condition on the possibility of the meaningful translation of writing. So if you think that there can be better or worse translations of things, let alone successful, functional ones, then you implicitly agree with this statement).

To speak, write, read and comprehend any particular language requires an awareness of rules, norms and truths, some of which aren't timeless at all. No particular language, no grammar in and of itself is timeless. Rather does each have its sense, in some necessary part, in and by a series of contingent conventions.

You seem to be insistent on ignoring this line of argument, which I previously presented to you, as well.

Why you would ascribe a cliché argument like "literature is timeless" to me is baffling, moreso to anyone who has actually bothered reading anything I have ever written(!)

It is clear you are not bothering to actually read and understand what is being written even after I provided that wonderful interview with julie carter.

You just studied discerning authorial intent and you are excited about it. Good. The rest of us have been unlearning it for a decade or more now.

Our new rallying cry is "a writer's job is to observe and report, meaning is left to readers."

But why can't you leap frog us and unlearn this already? Because you haven't learned it yet and it is trickier than it sounds.

Try and notice what you've just done. It is of a piece with what Abu pointed out prior. You've just ascribed all kinds of mental states to me, on the basis of inferences you're making from the words I'm writing. So, if you're right about where I'm at in my head as a reader, then in practice, you have conceded to the legitimacy of my position. I would invite you, in closing, to take your own advice, now, and chew the words, carefully.

[billy]

i closed the post and then reopened it. milo is commenting on how you discuss this specific topic. you have a stance, he states, if this is your stance or observation, he doesn't understand it. in a discussion we often take what people say at face value, it doesn't mean we know you.
he said

Why you would ascribe a cliché argument like "literature is timeless" to me is baffling,
this is not a poem opf yours, its views you profess to be your own, someone saying 'all gays should die' in a discussion would lead me to believe the person is anti gay. it's not rocket science is it. should a person say it in a poem isn't as clear cut. if you say you believe this or take that stand point we can't help but reply as if you're telling the truth. we haven't gained knowledge of who you are, we're merely replying to your point of view. are you crazy, i haven't got a clue, do i agree with your views? certainly not i think in the main they don't hold water,

you call him out for not using source, it's a discussion, he gave his pov more than once and reasons for it, even source material which was interesting, are you saying don't believe him because he didn't back it up but believe you because you copy and pasted a few poems. so lets be clear, inferences from a discussion are to be expected, it even a given, i can respond with certainty as to what your reply will be, simply by seeing how you react to previous post. i can if needed wind you up in order to make a bad pov seem better than yours but here that isn't the case. your premise of knowledge or poets has to be based on objectivity and that's an impossibility by just reading their poetry alone. what you're arguing is a subjective pov and at best that can only be a good guess. unless you know, you only think or guess.

no name calling no attacks, subjective is when you think or have personal bias, objective is when you actually know for fact.

the question i now ask is this,

can you definitively state after read a poets poems to objectively know, or partly know that person.

it's one word answer yes or no

to say to me 'i think i do' or anything resembling 'i think i do' isn't good enough, doesn't cut the mustard, doesn't fit the foot, doesn't fly. because that would be you being subjective.

if you say yes, yet you've had access to media outside the poem doesn't walk either.
Try and notice what i've just done.

one simple question, and i'm fine with 99.9 percent certain 'cause i know nothing can be 100% :J:

---

a works stands alone by the words within it and nothing else. we need not have knowledge of a truth or a person associated with it, we need not know if it's fact or fiction. it stand or falls by the text that forms the poem.
rowling wrote a love story after the harry potter book under a pen name and it bombed (i shit you not) then a college professor said he though he recognised the style to mrs rowling's she blushed a lot and said, "yes, it's mine i wanted to see how a book of mine would go under a pen name...it fuckin bombed fell flat did shite. after the world knew she'd wrote the shitty book it hit the best seller list. her book didn't stand on it's own

[jdeirmend]

Billy,

Your latest is all over the place. I don't know if you're addressing me, Milo, or whoever and at what point in it. I can barely make out an intelligible position in it.

But your "pointed" question is entirely besides the point. I'm not concerned with whether or not I can "objectively know" someone by reading their literature. I'm not concerned because I never claimed to be able to do this, and everything I stand for tells me that it is impossible to "objectively know" anyone, period, through any means, in any robust sense.

We piece clues together, rather, from the scraps they throw us. Our own imaginations help us to fill in the gaps. We have conjectures, speculations, inferences. Sometimes, they are unwarranted and illegitimate, as Milo's in his last response to me. (To elaborate on that point: there is no sense in which I've just learned about authorial intent. I was first exposed to the idea over ten years ago while an undergraduate in college.)

Sometimes, however, our inferences are spot on. There are times when interpretation, in other words, "hits the real." This still does not mean I know "someone objectively." Rather, it means that I've deciphered a motive or a meaning behind what was concealing or distorting its presence.

Within the context of this thread, I have already admitted that perhaps my original inferences about Pound and Eliot were unwarranted. What I will not back down on, though, is the idea that my methods are legitimate, even if I'm not always the best examplar of their correct, astute, and responsible use.

I've given you guys all kinds of reasons why, which have been variously ignored, misinterpreted, and so-forth. I've written about how the most eminent literary critic working in English right now routinely makes use of these sorts of methods. To be honest, I don't care to defend myself anymore. I've made myself about as intelligible as I possibly can. I've even pointed out how what I'm saying is not really controversial or uncommon; it's something we do every single day, again, as in the statements about my own psychology made in Milo's last post to me.

I don't quite understand the resistance to the ideas I'm presenting; I think it's more of a pissing match, at this point, than anything. I don't understand why there's been no rational justification for the roughly New Critical perspective you guys seem to champion, which is far too simple a theory of literature for me to take seriously. I tend to think of what you guys preach as an aesthetic movement, that blinds itself to what makes much great literature truly great: the fact that it is often an expression, however artfully concealed, of the artist's own struggle to come to some kind of internal clarity or coherence within him/herself, as much as situate him/herself within a tradition.

[billy]

then if you don't know them from an objective stand, you simply don't know them

and you knew who i was talking to :J:

basically you don't know, them from their poetry. you only think you do.

i love how you reply to everything i said after telling me it was intelligible
but that's nothing to do with the topic at hand. you said you know or get something about the writer from reading their poetry.
you tell me of all your sources but i see none. i can prove my point as valid because you state

But your "pointed" question is entirely besides the point. I'm not concerned with whether or not I can "objectively know" someone by reading their literature. I'm not concerned because I never claimed to be able to do this, and everything I stand for tells me that it is impossible to "objectively know" anyone, period, through any means, in any robust sense.

We piece clues together, rather, from the scraps they throw us. Our own imaginations help us to fill in the gaps. We have conjectures, speculations, inferences. Sometimes, they are unwarranted and illegitimate,

yet it seems you actually did say it.

Even so, there is so much you can learn about a poet, I think, from simply reading one poem.

it's there you said it. i say you only think you do.,


then you said

Tell me you don't know something about Pound from reading this thing. If all you can glean is that he was a character, that is still quite a bit!

bugger me, you said it again.


and i did but you didn't believe me
then you said

You haven't explicated what you mean at all by a work "standing alone." [/b]
don't tell me i'm discussing some irrelevant shite with some one who doesn't understand what "a work standing alone" means.

as for who's preaching, you seem to have a higher soap box than most any i've seen. so lets see, objectively you don't know anything of the poet from their poetry alone., an i right or am i right. because of this fact which you accepted any reference to know the poet henceforth will be deemed conjecture, did you see what i did there?
but this is my final post and i just know you won't be able not to reply so you win

[lainey]

I don't understand why you have to lock yourself into one theory or 'perspective.' At times there may be a line, a stanza, a poem, and so on, which alludes to the writer's life, and is so obvious it would be stupid to ignore. Other times the writing has nothing to do with the author's life. Can we not address both in criticism?

My thoughts on intentionality: I may intend to write about that night I walked alone in a dark street, and perhaps I somewhat do, but then I end up writing about rape. Does this mean that my intentions at one point have shifted or was it my 'intention' to write about rape all along without even realising it myself? My guess is that it is both, but what I'm trying to demonstrate is that the writer's intention is unknown to her (why did my intentions suddenly change? yes it is possible to say that a writer can know her intentions at a given point in time, but are these really her intentions when she has no authority over them, that they just suddenly appear and change without her even knowing why?) so intentionality is in fact a process of tracing back to before the 'intention' (what made me intend such and such?), a process which is only possible through the text -- the writer asks why he/she intended to intend because she sees the text as the only trace to intentionality, and the reader asks what the writer intended through the text because it is the only link to the writer, but both ask this question thinking that the text is a 'clue' which will lead to the real intention, but in fact we know that the text is just projecting intentionality. This is probably in lieu of poststructuralist thought, though i just made it up on the spot so I wouldn't know. So, the point is intentionality is not so linear, i.e., (I want to write 'cat') ---> (Cat) ---> ("Oh, the writer intended to write cat"). It's more like (I want to write 'cat') ---> (Cat) ---> (That's weird why did I write cat?). (Cat) ---> ("Oh, look the writer intended to write cat" If only I knew that she was questioning her own 'intentions', I would not be so quick to suggest that A) that that was indeed her intention, and B) that intentionality must exist objectively in the mind of the writer).

---

Oh, and professors! I have a question about 'knowing' the author. If I am, in the perception of the other, only what I say, do, act and so on (they can never know what I think), how then does writing not extend to my identity, or personality?

I do not see how "well you don't write about who you actually are, so ur writing says nothing about you" is an adequate answer. E.g. my friend has said to me "I would rape so and so,"(yes, another rape example, I guess i have this on my mind a lot must be a sign that I'm going to rape someone! though it'd be hard for me...) but anyway, I know (judging only by his personality) that he would never do this. Just because he said he was going to, doesn't mean he's a rapist/wannabe rapist. Yet his comment tells me more about him, that 1) he is obviously crude, 2) he says the first thing that comes to mind, no filter, 3) that he has a twisted sense of humour, and so on. And this is his personality, despite whether he intended for me to see him that way. Again, I ask, how is it any different in writing?

The point is is that this whole identity, "who the author actually is" notion is purely subjective, on the part of the other anyway, and you have falsely presumed that the other can be in the loop when in fact it is she who, i guess, creates my identity (not the same identity i have projected onto myself btw).

[jdeirmend]

then if you don't know them from an objective stand, you simply don't know them

and you knew who i was talking to :J:

basically you don't know, them from their poetry. you only think you do.

i love how you reply to everything i said after telling me it was intelligible
but that's nothing to do with the topic at hand. you said you know or get something about the writer from reading their poetry.
you tell me of all your sources but i see none. i can prove my point as valid because you state

But your "pointed" question is entirely besides the point. I'm not concerned with whether or not I can "objectively know" someone by reading their literature. I'm not concerned because I never claimed to be able to do this, and everything I stand for tells me that it is impossible to "objectively know" anyone, period, through any means, in any robust sense.

We piece clues together, rather, from the scraps they throw us. Our own imaginations help us to fill in the gaps. We have conjectures, speculations, inferences. Sometimes, they are unwarranted and illegitimate,

yet it seems you actually did say it.

Even so, there is so much you can learn about a poet, I think, from simply reading one poem.

it's there you said it. i say you only think you do.,


then you said

Tell me you don't know something about Pound from reading this thing. If all you can glean is that he was a character, that is still quite a bit!

bugger me, you said it again.


and i did but you didn't believe me
then you said

You haven't explicated what you mean at all by a work "standing alone." [/b]
don't tell me i'm discussing some irrelevant shite with some one who doesn't understand what "a work standing alone" means.

as for who's preaching, you seem to have a higher soap box than most any i've seen. so lets see, objectively you don't know anything of the poet from their poetry alone., an i right or am i right. because of this fact which you accepted any reference to know the poet henceforth will be deemed conjecture, did you see what i did there?
but this is my final post and i just know you won't be able not to reply so you win

The word "objective" is just not really appropriate for the kind of knowledge, in most cases, that we're going for. I never used it; that is your interjection. And I can weaken the claim about the "single poem" thing to many poems, without giving up entirely on what I'm arguing for.

You want sources? Start here.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1988/4...88-norton/

[Todd]

I know this doesn't lend to the discussion but as I read all this I wonder:

How long is thread going to go on?

It has the potential to be like a perpetual motion machine.

I have nothing to really contribute, but I'm enjoying the discussion.

[lainey]

I think it has lost its momentum, although I've tried giving it a tug.

[Todd]

I think it has lost its momentum, although I've tried giving it a tug.

It's always nice to see people do their part. We appreciate the thread CPR lainey--even if the patient dies.

[ChristopherSea]

It is like a 'trolling' pond with no fish to catch.

[milo]

I think it has lost its momentum, although I've tried giving it a tug.

It's always nice to see people do their part. We appreciate the thread CPR lainey--even if the patient dies.

I still don't think it will.achieve the "this is not poetry/art is subjective" level but we will see.

[jdeirmend]

I don't understand why you have to lock yourself into one theory or 'perspective.' At times there may be a line, a stanza, a poem, and so on, which alludes to the writer's life, and is so obvious it would be stupid to ignore. Other times the writing has nothing to do with the author's life. Can we not address both in criticism?

For purposes of discussion, it would be useful to know who you're addressing. I see myself arguing for an inclusive way of reading.

Whether or not a portion of a work recognizably or obviously alludes to a writer's life, however, is almost besides the point. For it doesn't confirm or change the fact that his or her intention formed the work. You seem to recognize this in the second half of your post, when you address the "professors."

My thoughts on intentionality: I may intend to write about that night I walked alone in a dark street, and perhaps I somewhat do, but then I end up writing about rape. Does this mean that my intentions at one point have shifted or was it my 'intention' to write about rape all along without even realising it myself? My guess is that it is both, but what I'm trying to demonstrate is that the writer's intention is unknown to her (why did my intentions suddenly change? yes it is possible to say that a writer can know her intentions at a given point in time, but are these really her intentions when she has no authority over them, that they just suddenly appear and change without her even knowing why?) so intentionality is in fact a process of tracing back to before the 'intention' (what made me intend such and such?), a process which is only possible through the text -- the writer asks why he/she intended to intend because she sees the text as the only trace to intentionality, and the reader asks what the writer intended through the text because it is the only link to the writer, but both ask this question thinking that the text is a 'clue' which will lead to the real intention, but in fact we know that the text is just projecting intentionality. This is probably in lieu of poststructuralist thought, though i just made it up on the spot so I wouldn't know. So, the point is intentionality is not so linear, i.e., (I want to write 'cat') ---> (Cat) ---> ("Oh, the writer intended to write cat"). It's more like (I want to write 'cat') ---> (Cat) ---> (That's weird why did I write cat?). (Cat) ---> ("Oh, look the writer intended to write cat" If only I knew that she was questioning her own 'intentions', I would not be so quick to suggest that A) that that was indeed her intention, and B) that intentionality must exist objectively in the mind of the writer).

I think it's cool that you're asking these questions, but your thinking seems to get muddied up in loose associations and equivocations. I find it hard to follow, but would encourage you to keep at it.