Re: love-hounds-digest Digest V13 #276

[Brian Dillard <dillardb@pilot.msu.edu>]

Sam wrote:
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The basic hermaneutical process is
to first get to the root of the author's meaning and the message he/she
consciously intented to relay.  That is *interpretation*, which is the
part
of the process in which our mind's work takes precedence.
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I believe you've presented a very well-reasoned argument, but the
underlying assumption in that argument is that an old-fashioned,
Romantic approach
to artistic criticism is what's called for. As much as I hate the
pretentious academic babble of much poststructuralism, it's simply not
possible at this point in intellectual history to pretend that any
number of competing critical modes haven't sprung up to replace, or at
least challenge, the Romantic model of the author as the originator of
meaning and the reader as the passive receptor of that meaning. That
model worked a hundred or 200 years ago when most art was "consumed" in
a mode of passive reflection ... bourgeoise ladies reading by
candlelight. But considering that most people today wouldn't be sitting
at home quitely poring over A Book of Dreams, reading the lyric sheet
and attempting Biblical-style exegesis of the song, I don't think you
can insist that Kate's "intended meaning" should be seen as the starting
point for interpretation and/or application. When the medium of
transmission is radio or TV, meaning is determined as much by the other
images and sounds juxtaposed with the text as by the text itself. When
you hear a snatch of lyrics ... "you're son's coming out" ... while
flipping through the radio dial, you don't have the rest of the song
lyrics or Kate's bio or Reich's book to steer your reception. You have
merely the text itself - the words and music - to go by. To say that a
fleeting interpretation of a snatch of a song is invalid is to ignore
the fact that people can and will derive meaning from such fragmentary
texts, and that the meaning they derive will be based on their personal
experiences and the circumstances of their encounter with that text
rather than by the author's intent or the historical facts that inspired
the text. The only realm where interpretation has ever been controllable
is in the academy, where rigorous intellectual methods are applied to
"high art" texts and a critical concensus is achieved _because the
players have to stick to the rules._ But with popular art and mass
media, circumstance, juxtaposition, personal experience and the like
will always render such _rules_ invalid.

----
Brian Dillard
dillardb@pilot.msu.edu
http://pilot.msu.edu/user/dillardb/