(October 5, 2019 at 9:24 pm)Fierce Wrote: Which is why I never cared for interpretative exercises of literature in school, because I kept thinking to myself, "How do we really know this is what the author meant?"
Well, you're right we can never know for sure what the author meant.
But that's not the only thing we look at when we think about (or interpret, or explicate, or ponder) a work of art. I don't think the author's intention is the total of what we can know and value -- maybe it's not even the most important thing.
How the object fits into its tradition and its age is something worth looking at.
And I know this may offend our democratic ears, but some people are better at interpreting than others.
