>Hi Velociraptor:
>
>
>>  I can see that
>> part of criticism is looking at something through our particular, unique
>> lens and applying our knowledge and our esthetic and our emotions to it
and
>> perhaps digging out symbols that mean something to us but may not be
there
>> for someone else, and sharing that so that others may have something new
to
>> think about.
>>
>
>Yep.  That's part of it.
>
>>
>> I did all that in BOOKING HAWAII FIVE-0, including finding Cain and Abel,
>> as well as the classic Western, in one of the episodes (well, it was
>> OBVIOUS to ME).  But some critics -- certainly not all -- are just a bit
>> too pedantic or overblown about it, approaching the task not as "I see
>> something here that excites me and I'd like to share it with everyone,
and
>> maybe a few will be happy to see what I see in this" but
rather as "I
know
>> so much more and am SOOOOO much more esthetically with-it than these
peons,
>> and I'm going to bring enlightenment to their drab, wretched lives."
THOSE
>> are the critics who drive me straight up the wall.
>>
>
>Certainly.  Those folks exist. And yeah, they're vexing as all hell.  So,
>however, do the ahhh-teests (and I lump authors into that, too) who insist
that
>THEY and THEY ALONE can know what a text/artwork means, because it's All
About
>Them (tm).  And that frosts me, too.
>
>
>>
>> Well, yes and no.  Symbols can be there for you but not for me, or
>> vice-versa.  It may or may not have been the intent of the author.  What
>> gripes me in this area is when some critic who doesn't know the author
from
>> Adam's off ox sees all these "gerbils," as Ursula K.
LeGuin refers to
them,
>> and says that this WAS the author's intent, when he or she doesn't know
for
>> sure whether it was or not.
>
>Yes - assigning intent to an author is (at least academically) a Big No-No
>(unless, as you note, there are texts by the author describing the process
of
>writing).  We don't know what the author meant, and we cannot therefore
>pronounce upon it.  Critics who do should - and often are, at least in
academic
>circles - shredded for it.  Even personal knowledge of an author is dicey
>grounds for assigning authorial intent.
>
>darkelf
>
>=====
>Obsequium parit amicos; veritas parit odium.  - Cicero
>(Compliance produces friends; truth produces hate.)
>
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