Friday, February 14, 2014
What If We Knew?
Many of our discussions are centered on what the author truly meant by his/her novel or poem. So what if we did know? Recently J. K. Rowling has released a statement saying Harry and Hermione should have ended up together, not Ron and Hermione. I was shocked, and began to see the Harry Potter series in a differently than before. My point is, perhaps it's best if we don't know, because I think many of us wouldn't be entirely happy or satisfied with the "ultimate" ending. #Ronione4evr
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5 comments:
I still completely agree. After the Queen's statement I definitely have started seeing the friendships and relationships in the series a bit differently (are Ron and Hermione a good fit, ect.-even after shipping them for so long). I'm honestly ashamed of the amount of BuzzFeed articles I read that were 100% dedicated to deciding who Hermione should have ended up with.
I think if we knew the meanings behind literary works first hand from the author, Humanities would be a whole lot less discussion based. Literary criticisms as a whole would be irrelevant. SparkNotes would go out of business. Essentially, it would be complete and total anarchy (obvious exaggeration). After all, we did spend two days trying to figure out what the heck was going on with "13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird."
I think about this all the time actually. When we first started reading poetry in lower school I can remember feeling thwarted by english teachers. I would get quite upset when teachers would say that the poem had a different meaning than I expected and came to the conclusion that no one really knows what poets are trying to say and that reading poetry is a bunch of hullabaloo. I have always known this isn't true but it's easy to want to believe this when you don't understand a poem. It is easier to give up and say that no one actually knows what is going on in The Wasteland and Eliot is crazy. But we can't do that because there really is a purpose behind the wasteland, we just need to "decipher" it! #goteamgo
I see what you're saying, but I kind of think it would be better if we could find out what the authors were thinking. Literary critics might have to get new jobs, but I think it would be worth it. I partly think this just because I'm pretty sure some authors make stuff up and pretend it's deep just to mess with people. I know that's not a good viewpoint to take, and it's usually not true, but Finnegan's Wake, seriously now. Even if they weren't just messing with them, I still think they're overanalyzed.
I am torn, because it would be interesting to find out what authors are thinking. Knowing their thought process would help see literature through their eyes, but at the same time I love being able to interpret it in different ways. If the author completely explains everything there is no room to read your own meaning into it.
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