V—Intention and Interpretation in Criticism

Cioffi, Frank

doi:10.1093/aristotelian/64.1.85

Cited by 18 publications

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“…24 This is the intuition of intentionality at work: we feel a resistance to attributing a meaning to a literary work that clearly goes counter to the author's intentions. This requirement is supported by an intuitioncall it the intuition of intentionality-that is best explained by an example.…”

Section: Clarifying Actual Intentionalism-a Critique Of Carrollmentioning

confidence: 99%

Meaning, Expression, and the Interpretation of Literature

Taylor

2014

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

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I argue that when we interpret a literary work, we engage with at least two different kinds of meaning, each requiring a distinct mode of interpretation. These kinds of meaning are literary varieties of what Paul Grice called nonnatural and natural meaning. The long-standing debate that began with Beardsley and Wimsatt's attack on the intentional fallacy is, I argue, really a debate about nonnatural meaning in literature. I contend that natural meaning has been largely neglected in our theorizing about literary interpretation and that this comes at a serious cost, resulting in an inadequate account of what interpretation involves. I argue, first, that by recognizing that literary meaning includes both nonnatural and natural meaning, we are better placed to understand the interpreter's relationship with the author, and, second, that recognition of the distinction between nonnatural and natural meaning advances the established debate about literary meaning, offering support for actual intentionalism. The more inclusive view of literary meaning helps resolve an apparent difficulty raised by Noël Carroll.

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Section: Clarifying Actual Intentionalism-a Critique Of Carrollmentioning

confidence: 99%

Meaning, Expression, and the Interpretation of Literature

Taylor

2014

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

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“…Yet the poem cannot possibly be, because Blake wrote the poem before the Industrial Revolution had begun (Cioffi, 1974). More likely than not paintings are a springboard for their imagination and projections, rendering interpretation just as much a creative, constructed process as painting.…”

Section: Viewers' Interpretationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Nature of Childhood through History Revealed in Artworks?

O’Brien

2003

Childhood

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Several authors have used artworks to interpret the nature of childhood in various historical periods. This contribution argues that artworks are of limited value in illuminating societies' attitudes towards children as well as the psychic realities and social experiences of children themselves. In particular, visual artworks suffer from ambivalent interpretation (both of subject matter and its expression) due to influences that are independent of its subject matter. Influences include: the vagaries of artistic developments, conventions, style, tastes, fashions, markets and patronage; physical factors such as the techniques, materials and technologies available, the division of labour, studio practices and the number of sittings available; the unpredictable nature of creativity; interpretations of viewers and `adults'; and the capacity of artworks to change social reality. It is concluded that psychosocial inferences about history based on artworks alone involve a category mistake and that the use of art as evidence for the nature of childhood is largely a matter of risky inference.

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“…Frank Cioffi (1963) argues persuasively that our relation to works of literature is such that information about what the author knows, intends, means, and so forth, tends to infl uence our response to that author's work. Indeed, this feature of the 'physiognomy of literature' makes it diffi cult to sustain the distinction between what Cioffi calls 'biographical' information about the author and critical comment about the text.…”

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confidence: 99%

The colour flows back: Intention and interpretation in literature and in everyday action

Tanney

2008

Journal of European Studies

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The notion of the author's intention is logically tied to the interpretation we give to her work, as the notion of the agent's intention is logically tied to the interpretation we give to her action. When we fi nd a discrepancy between what the author or agent says and the meaning we fi nd in her work or the sense we make of what she does, this does not show that the intention is irrelevant in determining this meaning or sense. As Frank Cioffi has argued, we are rather favouring one criterion of intention over another. Taking a close look at the early criticism surrounding The Turn of the Screw I draw attention to this phenomenon -much discussed by Wittgenstein -of favouring one criterion of intention over another. Because Wittgenstein's views, though mentioned frequently, are still ill-understood, I go on to tease out the philosophical assumptions that lurk in the background of disputes about the relevance of intention for interpretation.

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V—Intention and Interpretation in Criticism

Cited by 18 publications

References 0 publications

Meaning, Expression, and the Interpretation of Literature

Meaning, Expression, and the Interpretation of Literature

The Nature of Childhood through History Revealed in Artworks?

The colour flows back: Intention and interpretation in literature and in everyday action

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