[Milton-L] Symposium on Milton's Samson

[Hannibal Hamlin]

Perhaps so. I apologize if I misconstrued some posters' intentions!

I think what I found mildly hackle-raising is the very "ism" of
intentionalism (or the concomitant notion that one might or might not be an
"intentionalist"). The suffix seems to imply -- to me, of course, and I may
be wrong -- a theoretical-philosophical unity that I suspect few
"intentionalists" actually have (whatever an intentionalist might be).
Indeed, I'm not even sure what "intentionalism" might mean? Does it mean a
belief that authors have intentions? Surely this isn't terribly
controversial. Or that readers can or ought to try to determine such
intentions? How far does one have to believe in the accessibility of an
author's intentions before one is an intentionalist? What if an author has
multiple intentions, perhaps mutually contradictory, or subconscious
intentions (isn't this what Blake view of Milton and the Devil's Party
suggest?)?  What if one believes an author to have had a certain intention
that was not effectively communicated, so that author and work, say, are at
cross-purposes? Does intentionalism necessitate a belief that such
intentions are the primary determinants of meaning? Or can an intentionalist
of one stripe or another also be interested in literary form, communications
theory, or reader response?

The other point I'll make before being quiet is that its interesting that so
many anti-intentionalists (and, again, I'm not assuming any list members are
or aren't) are such habitual name droppers. If one always cites Barthes or
Foucault (or others) in one's criticism of intentionality, isn't that
somewhat perverse? One is then citing the arguments of specific authors
(which presumably they intended, otherwise why attribute the arguments to
them) against the notion that authors matter. Hmmm.

Hannibal

On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 1:43 PM, James Rovira <jamesrovira at gmail.com> wrote:

> I don't get the impression that people are assuming intentionalism is
> damning in this conversation.  I think the point is that
> intentionalism is often reinforced by those who deny it (perhaps
> unintentionally?), and that we're asking what's behind this activity
> -- what's motivating it?  Michael's post was a good reminder that it's
> dangerous to ascribe Fish's later ideas to SbS as he was still working
> them out at that point.
>
> If intentionalism hasn't gone away, or never did, really, what does it
> mean today?
>
> Jim R
>
> On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 1:26 PM, Hannibal Hamlin
> <hamlin.hannibal at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Obviously, we want to avoid theoretical
> > naivety, but slinging around the label "intentionalist" as if it were
> > automatically daming seems equally naive.
> >
> > Hannibal
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-- 
Hannibal Hamlin
Associate Professor of English
The Ohio State University
Burkhardt Fellow,
The Folger Shakespeare Library
201 East Capitol Street SE
Washington, DC 20003
hamlin.22 at osu.edu/
hamlin.hannibal at gmail.com
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