In their essay, ‘The Intentional Fallacy’ (1946), William K. Wimsatt Jr. and Monroe C. Beardsley, two of the most eminent figures of the New Criticism school of thought of Literary Criticism, argue that the ‘intention’ of the author is not a necessary factor in the reading of a text.
During the time-period when they authored this essay, the commonly held notion amongst people was that “In order to judge the poet’s performance, we must know what he intended.”, and this notion led to what is termed the ‘Intentional fallacy’. However, Wimsatt and Beardsley argue that the intention, i.e., the design or plan in the author’s mind, of the author is neither available nor desirable for judging the success of a work of literary art. It is not available because the author will most certainly not be beside the reader when he/she reads the text, and not desirable because intention as mentioned already is nothing but the author’s attitude towards his work, the way he felt while writing the text and what made him write that particular piece of writing and these factors might distract the reader from deciphering the meaning from the text. This method of reading a text without any biographical or historical background of either the poem or the poet practiced by the New Critics was known as ‘Closed Reading’. This stemmed from their belief in the autonomy of the text.
The New Critics, just like Wimsatt and Beardsley put forward in their essay, also believed in the ‘organicity’ of the text. In the essay, they write, “A poem should not mean but be.” And, since the meaning of the poem or the text is the medium through which it can exist, and words, in turn, is the medium through which the meaning is expressed, the poem or the text b...
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...g conveyed better in the words of that language as opposed to in the English language. But, the linguistic element would in no way convey to me, as a reader, some meaning which wouldn’t come across to a non-Assamese speaker who reads the translated version of the poem. Thus, I read the poem keeping in mind the background information about the poem and the poet but that information did not distract me from deciphering the actual meaning of the text; it actually added to it. In other words, unlike the proposal of Wimsatt and Beardsley, I “consulted the oracle” and also uncovered the true meaning of the text.
N.B.: ‘Shooting An Arrow’: translated by Pradip Acharya, former Professor of Cotton College, Guwahati, Assam.
References:
1. http://www.bipuljyoti.in/poetry/hirenb.html
2. Wimsatt Jr., William K. and Beardsley, Monroe C., ‘The Intentional Fallacy’.
Everett, Nicholas From The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-century Poetry in English. Ed. Ian Hamiltong. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. Copyright 1994 by Oxford University Press.
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