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Meaning

silver cloud
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Posted 08/12/05 - 10:52 AM: Subject: Meaning	#1
I am a student and teacher of English literature.I wonder where does the meaning of a literary book lie.Is it with the author or is it with the reader or is it in the text.Who is going to help me in this regard?

Recidiva
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1 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 08/12/05 - 11:26 AM: Subject: Shout out to C.S.	#2
C.S. Lewis wrote "We read to know we are not alone." He was an author, but he didn't say that "we write to know that we are not alone." It was about the act of reading. In the pages of books you find friends, companions, teachers, models and archetypes, light and shadow and all sortsa stuff you couldn't have thought up yourself because you're not in someone else's head or life. The meaning comes through our use of language and the way it can cast light or shadow on our own thoughts, color them, pick them out in track lighting or dig them out from the closet or under the rug. It's art in the invocation of human experience. Sometimes you read someone's stuff and think "Wow. Nothing in common with that person. That sucked. Want to avoid that." and other times you meet your soulmate, it's like sitting down to have coffee with your best friend, you're giggling together and gossiping, telling stories, making eye contact, making CONTACT. Someone is out there writing down words that say "I'm here! I'm here!" and we read them and send our smoke signals back "We see you! We love you! We hate you! You suck! You rock!" But we're not alone. Recidiva

nixnxin
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Posted 08/12/05 - 05:15 PM:	#3
First I thought that the meaning of a literary book lies with the reader. But the reader must learn to understand it, so its meaning is basically produced when one learns to understand it. Learning to understand it began when one learned the language in which it is written. Therefore I now think that its meaning must be with the language, i.e. the text. I have to think more about this ..but anyhow check out the term 'intentional fallacy'.

Eriatarka
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Posted 08/12/05 - 07:06 PM:	#4
It depends on how you want to use the word 'meaning'. If you want to use it to describe the (hypothesised) intentions of the author, then thats cool. But if you want to use it to describe the interpretation of the reader, thats cool too. All that really matters is that you pick one definition and use it consistently, rather than alternating between them. I think that author's intention and the reader's interpretion are both important things to consider. No matter which one you decide to call the 'meaning', you should pay attention to the other as well.

notquitethere
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Posted 08/14/05 - 11:46 AM:	#5
Like all things in life, books must be interpreted, however it is evident that when an author uses some sort of metaphor or analogy in their work, this device has an intended message. How one interprets this message and gains meaning from it is up to the individual. So for example when Aldous Huxley created his satire of western civilisation, Brave New World he had an obvoius meaning that he was trying to create. However this meaning only truly comes into it's own through contemplation or discussion on the part of the reader.
"Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise." - The Duchess

notquitethere
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Posted 08/14/05 - 01:02 PM:	#6
I just had a thought. Let us consider nonsense poetry. Say, nonsense poetry designed merely to fit a metre, but with no meaning from the writer. Say: "Johnny quickly lit a spark Within hidden room so dark" Although I just wrote that to demonstrate my point and so the words have no meaning in themselves, who among you cannot find some sort of meaning or even a little story from those words? Really you know that they're meaningless but still meaning can be gained. What do you think?
"Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise." - The Duchess

nixnxin
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Posted 08/15/05 - 05:09 AM:	#7
Like all things in life, books must be interpreted, however it is evident that when an author uses some sort of metaphor or analogy in their work, this device has an intended message. How one interprets this message and gains meaning from it is up to the individual. So for example when Aldous Huxley created his satire of western civilisation, Brave New World he had an obvoius meaning that he was trying to create. However this meaning only truly comes into it's own through contemplation or discussion on the part of the reader. The term 'interpretation' means establishment of communication between at least two different symbol systems. Now English is a natural public symbol system, and when I read a book in English I´m not making an interpretation from one system to another. To understand its meaning is not to make an interpretation. Metaphors, or analogies, are used to exemplify properties shared in different situations. For example, a blazing gaseous blob in space is the sun, but also a blazing woman on Earth is the sun, because they share the property 'blazing'. Such a metaphor is not an interpretation between two different symbol systems. Since a public language is public, the meaning is open to view, and not only accessible through a readers contemplation or discussion. Writers might use explanatory gaps, or unfinished sentences, just to inspire readers to think and make things up for themselves, or just to evoke the impression of "mystery" or "depth". I just had a thought. Let us consider nonsense poetry. Say, nonsense poetry designed merely to fit a metre, but with no meaning from the writer. Say: "Johnny quickly lit a spark Within hidden room so dark" Although I just wrote that to demonstrate my point and so the words have no meaning in themselves, who among you cannot find some sort of meaning or even a little story from those words? Really you know that they're meaningless but still meaning can be gained. What do you think? words or other signs don´t have meaning in themselves. The meaning lies in how they are used, or in which system they are used, and that´s why we can find a sign to be meaningful in one system, and meaningless in another.

rabeldin
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Posted 08/15/05 - 09:32 AM:	#8
nixnxin wrote: The term 'interpretation' means establishment of communication between at least two different symbol systems. Now English is a natural public symbol system, and when I read a book in English I´m not making an interpretation from one system to another. To understand its meaning is not to make an interpretation.... Except for the fact that the author may belong to a different linguistic tribe than you. In fact, we are pattern seeking animals. Just as we invented the signs of the zodiac to impose our thoughts on the skies, we impose our thoughts on those whose books we read. The ideal world of perfect communication is just that, an ideal, never attained. So meaning is never as straightforward as it seems.
Leave no assumption unquestioned.

Raoul_Dick
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Posted 08/15/05 - 10:04 PM:	#9
After reading "Art in the Age of Mechanistic Reproduction" I had to decide that art is within the viewer. I know that Benjamin was for the most part speaking about visual interpreted arts, but it remains - when an art is taken in, it is taken in through the senses and interpreted. By means of contemplation, we derive meaning, be it mundane or profound. Magritte (I think) give us "This is not a Pipe" - a fairly famous picture of a what clearly is a pipe with the title as its caption. You can interpret a number of interesting things from the picture, the caption, and both. You don't have to interpret anything, though, from one, the other, or either. Art then, I say, whether literary or otherwise, does not have inherent meaning beyond whatever meaning the artist intends, which is all well and fine unless you can't contact the artist, writer, creator...Though even then, the artist's words would pass through our filters. I guess that for me, at least, that means that meaning - that is, the meaning that we can perceive - exists and is created within ourselves, though a piece of art, work of literature, etc. stands on its own. In that form, though, it stands only as it truly exists.
"Logic is the armory of reason, furnished with all offensive and defensive weapons." - Thomas Fuller "The crowd is untruth." - Soren Kierkegaard Lord, help me to be the person my dog thinks I am.

nixnxin
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Posted 08/16/05 - 04:20 AM:	#10
rabeldin wrote: Except for the fact that the author may belong to a different linguistic tribe than you. In fact, we are pattern seeking animals. Just as we invented the signs of the zodiac to impose our thoughts on the skies, we impose our thoughts on those whose books we read. The ideal world of perfect communication is just that, an ideal, never attained. So meaning is never as straightforward as it seems. But communication would not be possible if each individual made up his or her own particular or tribal meaning of what he or she conveys or encounters. The signs of a natural language must be abstractions of what they signify (syntactically differentiated and character-indifferent), to enable common denominaton and use of them. What would it matter if the author belongs to a different tribe than I? All individuals are different in some sense. That´s a reason why we must use the same set of signs, to be able to communicate our differences as well as our similarities. Of course we project all kinds of properties onto things; we project properties onto a starry sky and get star constellations, or onto actual inscriptions in books and get literary signs, or even signs of signs, etc. However I think the meaning of a public sign is what it denotes, or what exemplifies it, and its meaning is established pragmatically. The establishment of a public sign, and learning of how to use it, may certainly include a lot of struggle, or contradiction. Perhaps that´s why attaining meaning never seems as straightforward as it is.

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