[ Textual Blog ]
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During the second day of this year’s Master Classes, after Warwick Gould’s presentation a debate ensued in which several very intelligent and well informed scholars argued about whether authorial “intention” should rather be authorial “intentions.” The main proponents of the argument, Sally Bushell and Win Van Mierlo argued that, because texts were the result of a process, surely it was much better to refer to “authorial intentions” as the author often changed his mind, revised and rewrote.
It seems to me that although there is an important point that these colleagues were trying to make –that it is extremely difficult to determine how an author might have changed his mind during the creative process–, they appeared to be arguing a strange point.
The question of whether it is more correct to refer to author’s “intention” or “intentions,” appears to have a straight forward answer. At any given point in time, a normal person has one intention. Naturally, this intention might change in the second that immediately follows. From this, it seems that people assume that there should be more than one intention –which could be accepted if . However, at any given point in time, there is only one. Even schyzophrenics or suferers of multiple personality disorders might have trouble both wanting and not wanting at the same time to write “to be or not to be.” Even if this were possible from a psychological perspective –and I don’t claim to be a psychologist– it would be impossible for us to prove it.
Clearly, textual scholars would fail their physics classes: the speed of a car does not become “speeds” at different points in time. Instead the only speed changes. Textual criticism is better served when the time of the intention is specified.
The problem that the discovery of the “authorial intention” might be an unatteinable goal is a completely different animal.