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.

The intentional fallacy forces the literary critic to assume the role of cultural historian or that of a psychologist who must define the growth of a particular artist’s vision in terms of his mental and physical state at the time of his creative act.

They asserted that an author’s intended aims and meanings in writing a literary work—whether these are asserted by the author or merely inferred from our knowledge of the author’s life and opinions—are irrelevant to the literary critic, because the meaning, structure and value of a text are inherent within the finished, free standing, and public work of literature itself.

Reference to the author’s supposed proposes, to the author’s personal situation and state of mind is held to be harmful mistake, because it diverts our attention to such external matters, and thus may cause the neglecting of the internal constitution and inherent value of the literary product.

Origin of Intentional Fallacy

As New Criticism develops in 1920s-1930s, the critics do not consider the reader's response, author's intention, or historical and cultural contexts. In 1954 “The intentional fallacy” was published, it argued strongly against any discussion of an author's intention, or "intended meaning." As the words on the page were all that mattered; importation of meanings from outside the text was quite irrelevant, and potentially distracting.

Definition of an Intentional Fallacy.M.H. Abrams : “A Glossary of Literary Terms”.

(page No: 175)

They asserted that an author's intended aims and meanings in writing a literary work—whether these are asserted by the author or merely inferred from our knowledge of the author's life and opinions—are irrelevant to the literary critic, because the meaning, structure, and value of a text are inherent within the finished, freestanding, and public work of literature itself.

Reference to the author's supposed purposes, or else to the author's personal situation and state of mind in writing a text, is held to be a harmful mistake, because it diverts our attention to such "external" matters as the author's biography, or psychological condition, or creative process, which we substitute for the proper critical concern with the "internal" constitution and inherent value of the literary product.

In C. Hugh Holman’s A Handbook to Literature, it is similarly said that in contemporary criticism the term is “used to describe the error of judging the success and the meaning of a work of art by the author’s expressed or ostensible (apparent) intention in producing it.” But it is also noted therein that “Wimsatt and Beardsley say, ‘The author must be admitted as a witness to the meaning of his work.’ It is merely that they would subject his testimony to rigorous scrutiny in the light of the work itself”

J. A. Cuddon’s A Dictionary of Literary Terms, we read: “The error of criticizing and judging a work of literature by attempting to assess what the writer’s intention was and whether or not he has fulfilled it rather than concentrating on the work itself”.

William Kurtz Wimsatt, Jr. (November 17, 1907 – December 17, 1975) was an American professor of English, literary theorist, and critic. Wimsatt is often associated with the concept of the intentional fallacy, which he developed with Monroe Beardsley in order to discuss the importance of an author's intentions for the creation of a work of art.

Life and career

Wimsatt was born in Washington D.C., attended Georgetown University and, later, Yale University, where he received his Ph.D. In 1939, Wimsatt joined the English department at Yale, where he taught until his death in 1975. During his lifetime, Wimsatt became known for his studies of eighteenth-century literature (Leitch et al. 1372).

He wrote many works of literary theory and criticism such as The Prose Style of Samuel Johnson (1941) and Philosophic Words: A Study of Style and Meaning in the "Rambler" and "Dictionary" of Samuel Johnson (1948; Leitch et al. 1372).

His major works include The Verbal Icon: Studies in the Meaning of Poetry (1954); Hateful Contraries (1965) and Literary Criticism: A Short History (1957, with Cleanth Brooks). Wimsatt was considered crucial to New Criticism (particularly New Formalist Criticism; 1372).

Perhaps Wimsatt’s most influential theories come from the essays “The Intentional Fallacy” and “The Affective Fallacy” (both are published in Verbal Icon) which he wrote with Monroe Beardsley. 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.

Why learning Intentional Fallacy

It reminds the readers to read the “text” with different views, by

reading at content level and as well with the author’s or narrator’s view. So the readers will fully understand

the real meaning of the “text.”

I1

The CLAIM of the author's "intention" upon the critic's Judgment has been challenged in a number of recent discussions, notably in the debate entitled The Personal Heresy, between Professors Lewis and Tillyard.

Behind the critical observation of a literary work lurks (to wait somewhere secretly, especially because you are going to do something bad or illegal) the desire to hang on to the ‘intention’ of its author, to locate its discernible (detect, visible, apparent) presence and drag it to the centre – stage of inquiry. Prof. Lewis and Tillyard have tried to debunk (expose, to show that an idea, a belief, etc, is false: to show that something is not as good as people think) this practice, to question its validity, but a great deal yet remain to be done.

W.K. Wimsatt jr. & M.C. Beardsley firs tried to discuss it in a Dictionary,(Dictionary of World Literature, ed. Joseph T. Shipley (New York, 1942), pp. 326-29)but constrains of scope did not allow a fuller treatment; however, the present essay takes up the debate in all its dimensions. The fundamental point stressed by them in the Dictionary and here in the essay, is that the author’s intention or design, ‘the author’s attitude to his work, the way he felt, what made him write’ and scores of related questions are not really relevant nor desirable for judging for judging whether the work is successful or not.

If we divide the critical attitude into two large categories on this basic, namely the classical imitation and romantic experience, we will find that author’s intention forms the central point around which discussion is developed. The primary goal is to arrive at the precise intention of the author capable of opening all doors to a proper understanding of his work.

2

We argued that the design or intention of the author is neither available nor desirable as a standard for judge the success of a work of literary art, and it seems to us that is a principle which goes deep into some differences in the of critical attitudes. It is a principle which accepted or rejected points to the polar opposites of classical ‘imitation’ and romantic expression.

It entails (make necessary) many specific truths about inspiration, authenticity, biography, literary history and scholarship, and about some trends of contemporary poetry, especially its allusiveness. There is hardly a problem of literary criticism in which the critic's approach will not be qualified by his view of "intention."

"Intention," as we shall use the term, corresponds to what he intended in a formula which more or less explicitly has had wide acceptance. "In order to judge the poet's performance, we must know what he intended." Intention is design or plan in the author's mind. Intention has obvious affinities for the author's attitude toward his work, the way he felt, what made him write.

"Intention," as we shall use the term, corresponds to what he intended in a formula which more or less explicitly has had wide acceptance. "In order to judge the poet's performance, we must know what he intended." Intention is design or plan in the author's mind. Intention has obvious affinities for the author's attitude toward his work, the way he felt, what made him write.

2

The concepts of “intentional fallacy” and “affective fallacy” began with W.K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley's essay “The Intentional Fallacy” 1946). Literary criticism at that time was heavily reliant on author-biography approaches, and Wimsatt and Beardsley put forward the radical idea that for literary works arguments about interpretation are not settled by consulting the oracle that is the author.

The meaning of a work is not what the writer had in mind at some moment during composition of the work, or what the writer thinks the work means after it is finished, but, rather, what he or she succeeded in embodying in the work. The “affective fallacy” (from an essay published three years later in 1949) is the idea that subjective effects or emotional reactions a work provokes in readers are irrelevant to the study of the verbal object itself, since its objective structure alone contains the meaning of the work

2

According to a famous argument by W. K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley, the intention of the author is neither available nor desirable as a standard by which to judge the success of a work of literary art. The author's intention is not available as a standard by which to judge a work's success, it is argued, because "If the poet succeeded in doing it [the intention], 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."

The intentional fallacy is part of the arguments of American New Criticism, which holds that the proper object of literary study is literary texts and how they work rather than authors' lives or the social and historical worlds to which literature refers. The “intentional fallacy” names the act of delimiting the object of literary study and separating it from biography or sociology. The meaning resides in the literary work itself, and not in statements regarding his or her intention that the author might make. These statements become separate texts that may become subject to a separate analysis

The New Critics used the method of “close reading” to arrive at interpretation of a text. Close reading is the elucidation of the way literature embodies or concretely enacts universal truth. These truths were called “concrete universals”. Of course this method has since been questioned and challenged on many grounds, particularly the neglect of context and the belief in universal truth.

"Intention," as we shall use the term, corresponds to what he intended in a formula which more or less explicitly has had wide acceptance. "In order to judge the poet's performance, we must know what he intended." Intention is design or plan in the author's mind. Intention has obvious affinities for the author's attitude toward his work, the way he felt, what made him write.

Intentional fallacy is a literary term that asserts that the meaning intended by the author of a literary work is not the only, and perhaps not the most important, meaning of the piece. The term was first used by W.K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley in their essay "The Intentional Fallacy." The notion has become central to modern literary criticism and is an important part of what is known as the New Criticism.

When writing an author must call upon both their understanding of the language in which they write and their personal experiences about reality to create a work. Even the most escapist fantasy must appeal to some shared understanding in the reader to be intelligible at all. A reader must also call upon their understanding of language and personal experiences in order to decode meaning in a work