- From: Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis <bhawkeslewis@googlemail.com>
- Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2007 21:44:55 +0000
Elliotte Harold wrote: > Authorial intent is a myth. Presumably you don't mean that authors don't have intents, but rather than authorial intent is ultimately irrecoverable. That's true, but it's not necessarily an especially useful truth (in this context). All communication involves translation, and something invariably gets "lost" in translation. But if you want to arrive at an approximation of what an original interlocutor meant (which is what we usually want to do), you want an interpreter who attempts to capture, however remotely, the original meaning, not somebody who just makes stuff up. Partial knowledge is better than no knowledge. -- Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis
Received on Wednesday, 21 February 2007 13:44:55 UTC