jagstag posted:

however if you apply no wrong readings to everything how are you going to cover satire

Mel Mudkiper posted:

A reading can never be wrong. However, it can be weak or inconsequential.

Sham bam bamina! posted:

Franchescanado posted:

An example of this from CineD*, from about a year ago, a goon couldn't comprehend how to interpret film beyond what the film presented or reading about the filmmaker's intention. Symbolism, interpretation, themes, motifs, all of it was beyond their own creative interpretations. It became such an issue that they were given a Mod Challenge to come up with any interpretation of any aspect of Alien. All they had to do was pick one or two signifieds and then discuss their signifiers; it could be bat-poo poo insane, as long as it was an original interpretation. They were even given examples of how to do so. Their result? An essay detailing the art director's intention, the cinematographer's intention, the writer's intention, and Ridley Scott's intention. They were incapable of anything other than reading imdb trivia and wikipedia articles. Heavy reliance on author intention creates goons like that. (If I can find a link, I'll edit it in, because it's a great argument for Death of the Author.)

jagstag posted:

so if i was to say that a modest proposal was actually pro baby eating you would say that the reading is weak/inconsequential and not wrong?

jagstag posted:

so if i was to say that a modest proposal was actually pro baby eating you would say that the reading is weak/inconsequential and not wrong?

Sham bam bamina! posted:

The only way for a reading to be wrong is if it's factually inaccurate about the contents of the text, but then it isn't a valid reading in the first place. Assuming that you're talking about what's actually described in a satire, you can absolutely choose to read it as an endorsement of what it condemns. It would be dumb, but it wouldn't be wrong.

jagstag posted:

then who is to say what is a dumb reading and what is a good reading?

OscarDiggs posted:

As someone who only knows what signified and signifier means is because they googled it as a result of this post, let mejust say that would be an amazing thread to read. Especially where it concerns my own difficulty with theme, symbolism and what have you. Though I would hope in my case it's more lack of experience then total inability.

jagstag posted:

then who is to say what is a dumb reading and what is a good reading?

Mel Mudkiper posted:

the reader of the reading

jagstag posted:

and then that reader of the reading can misconstrue what the author of that reading says

OscarDiggs posted:

As someone who only knows what signified and signifier means is because they googled it as a result of this post, let mejust say that would be an amazing thread to read. Especially where it concerns my own difficulty with theme, symbolism and what have you. Though I would hope in my case it's more lack of experience then total inability.

jagstag posted:

so if i was to say that a modest proposal was actually pro baby eating you would say that the reading is weak/inconsequential and not wrong?

Seldom Posts posted:

I read At the Mountains of Madness and it reminded me of the time I took a trip to the mountains, so it is a happy book for me.

Seldom Posts posted:

I read At the Mountains of Madness and it reminded me of the time I took a trip to the mountains, so it is a happy book for me. This is a strong reading of the text.

Mel Mudkiper posted:

Speaking of which, Lord of the Flies might be the wrongest taught book in all of American fiction

Second only, maybe, to The Scarlet Letter

Ben Nevis posted:

Can you elaborate?

Mel Mudkiper posted:

explain why



I mean in general, I don't get why dinguses think a subjective reading is wholly voluntary. Like they seem to think you can go "so I can say War and Peace is about migratory penguins and you can't say I am wrong"

Subjectivity is not voluntary, subjectivity is inherent. A book can have infinite meanings to the reader as subject, but the reader is not reading subjectively if they are just tossing interpretations they don't believe in for the sake of it.

I mean, at some level I do envy the ability for a barely literature manchild to stumble upon the last half century of critical thought and think "heh, idiots, if the book can have infinite readings than I can just say whatever I want."

Like, do you really think this is not something critics realized?

OscarDiggs posted:

I think, if I am understanding the point, that yeah, sure. If you read At the Mountains of Madness as a happy book, congrats; more happiness in the world for you. You might have been drunk off your tits or hallucinating stuff up as you were reading it, or you may have been at your most perceptive and cogent, picking up on things no one else ever has. You can read At the Mountains of Madness in such a way because you are an autonomous human who has had your own lived experiences. And those expereinces are the lens through which you interpret the stuff in the book.

So, just as someone with schizophrenia might interpret something on the radio as a sign from God to start the harvest, you can read At the Mountains of Madness as a happy book. Because the life you have experienced thus far up to that point has led you to interpret it as such. And indeed, in 20 years time you may re-read it and with the additional 20 years of lived experience you have gained re-think and say "Actually, At the Mountains of Madness is about migratory Penguins!" and there is nothing inherently wrong with that. And 10 years ago you may have read it and thought "I am so sick of these allegorical books about wheat farming during the Civil War."

But people may be skeptical of your reading, and may ask you to back it up with an argument why you think that is the case. Which is why Mel could say your interpretation of At the Mountains of Madness as a happy book because it reminded you of a trip you took once is a weak one.

I think so anyway.

Seldom Posts posted:

Missed this in my response to Mel.

I mean, yes this is completely the point I was trying to make, using the literary device known as Irony. So I'm glad you got it, even though you think I'm a dunce.

Mel Mudkiper posted:

They are both books that seem be taught by public schools (at least in my experience) as an Easter Egg hunt for "symbols" that are meant to be concrete and inarguable

It reinforces the most pedestrian sort of reading, an author-centric riddle box that needs to be "correctly" "solved"

OscarDiggs posted:

Sorry!

If it's any consolation I wasn't sure if I was right or not until you said so, so it's definetly me who's the dunce.

my bony fealty posted:

I have known someone who was an obstinate believer in "objective readings" and would say dumb poo poo like this to prove that subjectivity is wrong or w/e, and they were an English major :/ :/

my bony fealty posted:

in my reading Hamlet's dad's ghost is actually a hologram projected by space aliens and Yorick's skull is that of the starchild, therefore Shakespeare is arguing ancient aliens are real, prove me wrong!!

I have known someone who was an obstinate believer in "objective readings" and would say dumb poo poo like this to prove that subjectivity is wrong or w/e, and they were an English major :/ :/

my bony fealty posted:

in my reading Hamlet's dad's ghost is actually a hologram projected by space aliens and Yorick's skull is that of the starchild, therefore Shakespeare is arguing ancient aliens are real, prove me wrong!!

I have known someone who was an obstinate believer in "objective readings" and would say dumb poo poo like this to prove that subjectivity is wrong or w/e, and they were an English major :/ :/

vandalism posted:

I guess there really is no objectivity.

Ccs posted:

He was pretty intense. He has this quote from Richard Rorty emblazoned on his website, and was relentlessly critical of the other professors in the Department (he didn't have to worry about them hating him cause he had tenure):

" I think that the English departments have made it possible to have a career teaching English without caring much about literature or knowing much about literature but just producing rather trite, formulaic, politicized readings of this or that text. This makes it an easy target. There's a formulaic leftist rhetoric that's been developed in the wake of Foucault, which permits you to exercise hermeneutics of suspicion on anything from the phonebook to Proust. It's an obviously easy way to write books and articles, and it produces work of very low intellectual quality. That makes this kind of thing an easy target from the outside. It permits people like Roger Kimball and D'Souza to say these people aren't really scholars, which is true."