In reading \u201cDead Again\u201d by Norris and Pecora, I became interested in the validity of using Joyce\u2019s biography as grounds for interpreting his writing. In class on Tuesday we briefly discussed how scholars often base interpretations of Ulysses off of relationships they find between the text and Joyce\u2019s own life, and Professor Simpson explained that this isn\u2019t necessarily the best way to go about interpreting literature.<\/p>\n
\u201cDead Again\u201d spends a lot of time discussing this idea, particularly in relation to the role of the reader vs. authorial intention in finding meaning in a text, and Pecora cites Walter Benn Michaels as a scholar who holds almost the exact opposite opinion as we discussed in class: \u201cthat is, if you don\u2019t believe that authorial intention is the same thing as textual meaning, then you don\u2019t believe that people are defined by what they say and by their beliefs, and you must believe that people (not just readers) are defined by what they are, by a cultural essence (that is, something independent of rational beliefs), which effectively makes you a racist\u201d (350).<\/p>\n
While Pecora certainly expresses his own skepticism regarding Michaels\u2019 claim, I\u2019m wondering if there is any validity in the idea that authorial intention plays at least somewhat of a role in determining a text\u2019s meaning. While it does seem extreme to call any interpretations other than those based on authorial intent \u201cracism,\u201d does Pecora\u2019s change of heart regarding his interpretation of \u201cThe Dead\u201d\u2019s ending lose validity because it is expressed as extremely personal in nature? What significance or weight does his personal emotions regarding the story\u2019s ending bear on us as readers?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In reading \u201cDead Again\u201d by Norris and Pecora, I became interested in the validity of using Joyce\u2019s biography as grounds for interpreting his writing. In class on Tuesday we briefly discussed how scholars often base interpretations of Ulysses off of relationships they find between the text and Joyce\u2019s own life, and Professor Simpson explained that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53\/revisions\/54"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}