Linked Questions
15 questions linked to/from How much weight should we give authors' declarations of their intent after the fact?
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Do literature interpretations actually reflect what the author had in mind? [duplicate]
I read an article about a writer who was asked about the interpretation of one of his books, and he had a hard time coming up with something that would be aligned with the expectations of the jury. ...
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What is Tom Bombadil's importance in The Lord of the Rings?
Tom Bombadil is definitely one of the weirdest characters in all of The Lord of the Rings, he just comes out of nowhere, stumbling upon Frodo and Sam while singing. His actions are just incredibly ...
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The author of a literary work disagrees with critics about meaning—who's right?
I've just come up with a conjecture on what a piece of literature means, but the author has said that they didn't mean for their work to suggest that.
For example, Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 is ...
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Is there any textual evidence to support that Dumbledore was gay?
JK Rowling announced in 2007 to an audience at Carnegie Hall that Albus Dumbledore was in fact, gay and always had been...
Q: Did Dumbledore, who believed in the prevailing power of love, ever fall ...
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Ray Bradbury says Fahrenheit 451 isn't about censorship. Is he right?
According to this question about Ray Bradbury's intentions, Ray Bradbury did not intend for Fahrenheit 451 to be about government censorship, and went so far as to say "Fuck you" to someone who argued ...
user111
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Is it reasonable to use the movie version of a book to interpret the book when the same author wrote both?
Related: How much weight should we give authors' declarations of their intent after the fact?
Just to give a concrete example of what I'm asking about, I'm thinking in particular about The Hunger ...
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Was Susan ever able to return to Narnia?
At the end of The Last Battle, Peter states that Susan has become 'too grown up' to return to Narnia. However, we do see grown-ups coming to Narnia, or Aslan's country - we see their parents. Also, it ...
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How much weight is given to authors' intentions in literary analysis?
When people analyze literature, one of the first things people seem to do is look for interviews or quotes from the author where the author describes the meaning they intended their text to have.
My ...
user111
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What is the meaning of these lines about love from "Desiderata"?
What is the message being delivered through these lines in "Desiderata" by the poet Max Ehrmann?
Especially do not feign affection
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity ...
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Did Plutarch Heavensbee actually not know the details of the Quarter Quell?
At one point in the book, Plutarch Heavensbee claims that he didn't know that Katniss was going back into the Games. This would seem very odd if true, especially given that he was the Head Gamemaker ...
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Should Go Set a Watchman change our view of Atticus defending Tom Robinson?
I do realize that the passage of To Kill a Mockingbird where Atticus defended Tom Robinson has been heavily analyzed elsewhere at this point. However, it seems like most people got the impression that ...
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Why are the magicians who captured Morpheus "rubbish"?
Neil Gaiman is on record saying the people who captured Morpheus in issue #1 (i.e. Roderick Burgess and the Order of the Ancient Mysteries) are
completely rubbish, English, sort of Crowley-esque, ...
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Was authorial intent ever taken seriously in academic literary theory?
What does the author mean? and What does the author want to say/convey/express/...? are questions we heard countless times during literature classes at school. In other words, it is a common didactic ...
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How can readers ascertain that they have identified the author's intent?
We currently have several questions about auhorial-intent, for example,
How much weight is given to authors' intentions in literary analysis? and
How much weight should we give authors' declarations ...
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How intentional are symbols, and do we ever know that the author meant the reader to interpret them in a certain way?
To avoid this question being overly broad, I will connect it to a specific book. In Catcher in the Rye, Holden frequently wonders where the ducks in Central Park go for the winter. When I read the ...
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