Future Interpretation

The blog post I wrote about Ozymandias highlights something that bothers me about contemporary literary analysis. That is, the fact that people, often professors or article writers, take something, analyze the fuck out of it, and come up with some absurd theories, and then claim it was the author's intent. Even if the author disagrees with them, they can still just claim he inserted it subconsciously. Now, I won't claim that I don't insert things subconsciously, like the idea that I secretly want someone to misanalyze me so I can become all indignant and bitchy; however, an outside observer who's never met me and only read my works is not the ideal person to judge just what I subconsciously project into my writing, and should not speak authoritatively on just what I mean by my writings.

The problem is, I can't decry all of them either, because occasionally people do come up with insightful analysis that reflect what the author meant to write. I'd hate to go, "Everyone who critiques my work sucks," because by sheer chance, there almost certainly will be someone who doesn't.

Thus, my statement as such, is this: if you take my work, and say that it was my intent for what I write to mean whatever you claim, then I think you are being an arrogant bastard who assumes too much about why I write, and I question whether you should be doing it. Your own opinion is fine. Taking your ideas and asserting they're mine, isn't.

This may anger some people. That's pretty cool; I should do that more often.