Q&A 6, First Answer

The basic form of my question is: In the case of a work written by multiple authors, is one author's view ever more correct than another's?

As long as all the authors mutually agreed that they had equal rein over the fictional world within which their work takes place, I do not think so.  If the authors divided up a work, so that one had jurisdiction over character development, another over geographical descriptions, etc., then perhaps.  This would introduce a previously un-addressed idea into the discussion, however; the idea of permission to interpret.  While, by the view I support, all non-contradictory interpretations are valid, I still think that the interpretation of the original author overrides these; that is to say, if the author writes a sequel which contradicts someone else's interpretation, the sequel is more 'true' than the interpretation.  However, when one introduces the idea of multiple authors, the whole matter becomes much more complicated.  What if the authors have a disagreement, and two of them write (incompatible) sequels to the original work?  Possibly both sequels would be equally true interpretations, which overrode the interpretations of non-authors.  I am not certain about this, however, and as such I would welcome any input.

Answering All the Questions

According to Nehamas, the ideal interpretation of a text is one which can answer all questions related to the text.  He further states that no interpretation can in fact do this.  I am not certain that I agree.  While an interpreter may not initially formulate such answers, it seems quite possible that upon questioning they could come up with answers which did not contradict the earlier parts of their interpretation.  Certainly the writer of a text could probably do so, unless their text is flawed so that it inherently contradicts itself.

If, however, Nehamas means that an ideal interpretation would state answers to all possible questions related to the text in one draft, then I agree that such an interpretation cannot exist.  This is because one can raise a great deal, if not an infinite number, of questions about any given text; as such, any one interpreter would die before being able to answer all of them.  Even if a single interpreter could be immortal, if the number of questions is infinite, they would still never be able to answer all of them.

Style and Great Literature

Often, when listening to someone listing works of great literature, one may notice that almost all the works on the list are somewhat old; almost never is a work written in the last ten years, or even in contemporary, relatively informal English, included.  Why is this?  Did people simply stop writing works of great literature in the early 1990's?  I do not think so.  However, I think that the number of people writing in less formal English increased dramatically, and that society does not at the moment tend to consider works written this way as candidates for great literature.

Even the more recent works of great literature are not written in informal and straightforward styles.  They tend either to be in high style (formal English, typical of the early 1900's) or in a novel style, such as stream-of-consciousness or abstract metaphor.  I think that this discrimination against works written in less formal English is not at all justified; such works can still have great aesthetic merit (in imagery, or even in choice of words) and incredible depth in terms of character development, plot, world-building, insight into psychological states, and in fact all the areas which make great works of older literature great.

Response: Lost Literature

In response to Brandon Gaudet's post "Catechism and Documentation" (March 30, 2012):

As well as documenting religious beliefs, writing can document culture.  Codes of law, constitutions, instruction manuals, and other documents often describe many of the most important aspects of a culture.  This is one reason why the destruction of documents is such a tragedy in many cases - even if a culture is destroyed, it can be recreated from its documentation, but that is gone then the culture also is all too often gone forever.

Perhaps the best-known example of this is the Spanish destruction of a vast portion of the Aztec culture's written works.  While, after much effort, archaeologists have discovered a few remaining documents, as well as stone carvings which record part of Aztec culture, there are still many aspects of the culture which remain unknown to modern researchers, and will probably always remain so.

In contrast, cultures which conquered other cultures but retained the conquered cultures' written documentation are often responsible for greatly improving modern society's knowledge of the past.  Cultures are intertwined, so preserving the documents of one culture frequently affects later knowledge of others.

Response: Correctness

In response to Jacob Wheeler's post "The Correct Interpretation" (March 31, 2012):

What, exactly, does the term 'correct interpretation' mean?  Surely it does not mean the only interpretation with merit; if interpreting a work correctly means interpreting it according to the author's intentions, that would imply that other interpretations are worthless.  This is clearly not the case, as stated in the post above.  Alternate interpretations, particularly if they follow easily from the work and as such become popular amongst readers and society in general, can have great value.

Perhaps 'correct' means 'best.'  In this case, one must wonder why precisely the author's interpretation is the best.  Possibly it is the most valid or truthful, but I am not certain why this would be the case either.