Intentional fallacy • 1. Intentional Fallacy INTRODUCTION Intentional fallacy,(a false idea that many people believe is true) term used in 20th- century literary criticism to describe the problem inherent in trying to judge a work of art by assuming the intent or purpose of the artist who created it. • Introduced by W.K. Wimsatt, Jr., and Monroe C.Beardsley in The Verbal Icon (1954), the approach was a reaction to the popular belief that to know what the author intended—what he had in mind at the time of writing—was to know the correct interpretation of the work. AFFECTIVE By W. As well might FALLACY BEARDSLEY study ting drunk?Eduard and JR., the of wine properties Hanslick, get by in Music. The Beautiful that of the title of this essay invites comparison with AS an earlier and to assert may be relevant to be exploring ent from the psychological relativism. Dota 2 free download garena. This game has a simple concept and objectives which take me a little time to understand. For me, it is a big boost on your ego. The Affective fallacy. For Wimsatt and Beardsley, it is a fallacy of analysis. Works by William K. Wimsatt at Project Gutenberg. New Criticism: Affective and Intentional Fallacies. With regard to intentional fallacy, Wimsatt and Beardsley stated, 'Critical inquiries are not settled by consulting the oracle.' That is, to discern the true meaning of a text, the. Wimsatt and Beardsley suggest that the poem itself should show the intention of the author. If not, and a. › › Key Theories of Wimsatt and Beardsley Key Theories of Wimsatt and Beardsley By on • ( ) In addition to their other works, the critic Wimsatt (1907–1975) and the philosopher Beardsley (1915–1985) produced two influential and controversial papers that propounded central positions of, “ ” (1946) and (1949). In the first of these, they lay down certain propositions that they take to be axiomatic: while acknowledging that the cause of a poem is a “designing intellect,” they refuse to accept the notion of design or intention as a standard of literary-critical interpretation. 1 In stating their second “axiom,” they raise the question of how a critic might find out what a poet’s intention was and state what is effectively their central claim: “If the poet succeeded in doing it, then the poem itself shows what he was trying to do. And if the poet did not succeed, then the poem is not adequate evidence, and the critic must go outside the poem – for evidence of an intention that did not become effective in the poem.” The third axiom is the American poet Archibald’s MacLeish’s statement that a “poem should not mean but be.” Wimsatt and Beardsley explain this statement as follows: “A poem can be only through its meaning – since its medium is words – yet it is, simply is, in the sense that we have no excuse for inquiring what part is intended or meant... In this respect poetry differs from practical messages, which are successful if and only if we correctly infer the intention” (VI, 4–5). This is an effective restatement of a position that the poem is an autonomous verbal structure which has its end in itself, which has no purpose beyond its own existence as an aesthetic object. It is not answerable to criteria of truth, accuracy of representation or imitation, or morality. Finally, Wimsatt and Beardsley insist that the thoughts and attitudes of a poem can be imputed only to the dramatic speaker or persona of the poem, not directly to the author (VI, 5). The foregoing “axioms” are merely stated rather than argued. The Intentional FallacyThe first argument of the essay is Horatian: a poem, once published, no longer belongs to the author but to the public: “It is embodied in language, the peculiar possession of the public, and it is about the human being, an object of public knowledge” (VI, 5). The implication here is that, as an object in public language, the poem is available to the public for interpretation; the author has no privileged claim over language and his word outside of the poem cannot be taken as somehow authoritative. They acknowledge that an author can offer useful practical advice for a would-be poet, but such advice falls under the “psychology of composition rather than criticism” (VI, 9). What Wimsatt and Beardsley are opposing is what they take to be a Romantic intentional fallacy: the Romantic idea, expressed in ancient times by and more recently by figures such as the great German writer and the Italian philosopher, that a poem echoes the soul of its author, that it embodies his intentions or psychological circumstances (VI, 6). The most influential recent statement of intentionalism, according to the authors of this essay, is ’ fourfold characterization of meaning as “sense,” “feeling,” “tone,” and “intention.” The passwords of the intentional school are Romantic words such as “spontaneity,” “sincerity,” “authenticity,” and “originality.” These need to be replaced, say the authors, with terms of analysis such as “integrity,” “relevance,” “unity,” and “function,” terms which they claim to be more precise (VI, 9). Like, Wimsatt and Beardsley are concerned to exclude from criticism certain related studies such as author psychology, biography, and history. They in fact make a distinction between “internal” and “external” evidence for the meaning of a poem.
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