When I first started reading
Wimsatt and Beardsley’s essay, I was pretty much a blank slate. I had no preconceived ideas or theories
floating around in my thoughts, I just (awkwardly) swan dived into the deep end. Perhaps this isn’t the best way to go about
the readings for this class, but there you have it. Unsurprisingly, I began thinking about the
idea of author’s intention shortly after jumping into the reading. By the time I finished reading the fifth
proposition in page 812, I had homed in on an idea to focus on; the act of
revision.
“There
is a sense in which an author, by revision, may better achieve his original
intention” (Fallacy 812) is the line that started off my whole thought
process, a process that ended up in a place quite different than the quoted
line. For me, the idea of revision is
interesting in the context of intentionalism because the process involves going
back to a previous work (which could be seen as a specific moment in time) with
newly acquired knowledge, feelings, or ideas and applying them to the original
work. So, in a sense, revision seems to
be much like the Back to the Future series, taking newer knowledge and
using it to change the past. This led to
a few questions for me, some that I can’t quite answer just yet. Does the act of revision somehow corrupt the
original author’s intention? If a poem
gets revised, would it have a completely new intention behind it, or would the
original intention act as a foundation that newer revisions could stack upon, a
skyscraper of intentions in a sense? I
think these questions came more from my end than they did from the essay, so I
don’t quite recall finding any answers.
Or possibly it’s because I’m writing this at such a late hour, no one
knows for sure.
1 comment:
I think your title is excellent and brings to mind the most infamous revisionist around today: George Lucas. So let's look at Star Wars to head towards an answer of some of your questions.
Does the act of revision somehow corrupt the original author's intention? We all know that Han shot first originally in episode IV but 20 years later George decided that Greedo shot first and revised it. This severely dampens Solo's character arc. Originally he has some interesting character growth where he goes from being a selfish smuggler only looking to save himself to saving Luke Skywalker at the last minute in a selfless act of heroism. George originally intended for this interesting character arc but that was later corrupted by his new intention to make Han a flatter "good-guy."
For your second question it seems that the "Han Solo shooting first" example would make a good argument for how it creates completely new intentions. On the other hand, most of George's revisions are far more superficial and seem to argue that they only stack upon the original intentions. The terrible and ridiculous song and dance scene added to Jabba's Palace adds a sense of decadence that wasn't quite present originally. Hayden Christiansen being added as the ghost of Darth Vader at the end of Return of the Jedi is silly, but it shows us that Vader, in his 11th hour, has reverted to his younger innocent self. Very recently George added an over-dramatic "NOOOOOO" to Darth Vader as he tosses the emperor down the huge shaft to his doom. This seems completely superficial and does not add or remove any intention as far as I can tell.
Anyway, there's my non-academic analysis of your questions. It might be tenuous to consider Lucas and Star Wars as having the same relationship as a poet to his poem but I think having a modern example can still be enlightening.
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