Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-95.149.5.49-20160729002848/@comment-25316824-20160927132952

SomeoneYouUsedToKnow wrote: Nikoli the rebel wrote: 1. Again that is not my opinion but the opinion of the literature community. Therefore, the poem is far from obscure.

2a. The vignette concerning the wanderer in the desert depicts a Young and lost blake and I specifically speculated on the events that might have lead her to seeking Adam's comfort.

2b. Authors intent is irrelevant. So if you think that the drapes are blue because it means deeply depressing then you can believe that and tell the author to **** off.

3a. No. I don't believe I have generalized anything. In contrast I used very specific symbols from a very specific poem to describe very specific situations in the lives of two very specific characters.

3b-I know poetry may seem like a Rorschach test at times but finding meaning in poetry is the only thing that gives it meaning.

3c-(unless you are a nihilist in which case there is never any meaning which I think is the ideology you are going for here.) 1-Judging from the comments from the others here, I can only see that I'm right in this matter: Most people don't even know it exists. So your whole argument of it being sooo well known and supremely important is nothing more than a hyperbole, and makes it even less likely for M-M and K to even know about it. Especially since Monty didn't even finish his studies, so he's even less likely to know about it, and he's the one who made most of the plans of the show.

2a-And I said I fail to see how Adam could represent "survival and temptation" without stretching the meanings.

2b-And now you're an idiot. Author's Intent is most definitely relevant and important. Trying to find meaning where the author meant nothing is trying to find color in a monochrome painting, pretending the presence of something that's not even there. At most, there's the interpretation of the intended meaning, by comparing what the Author meant with how he represented it (symbolizing sadness using yellow curtains, for example).

Saying Author's intent is irrelevant is literally the same as telling the Author "your opinion means less than shit, we don't care about it". How do you think that would feel?

3a-Now you're stretching the meaning of "very specific".

3b-Yet you fail at the most basic of poetry: The meaning is subjective when it comes to interpretation. What you think is the meaning, anyone else could find something else in their place from the same item.

3c-Nihilism: Life has no objective purpose, meaning or intrinsic value. The whole "everything is meaningless" is just a straw exageration. Nihilism means to take reality for what it is, to expect nothing, and not make a big deal of anything, because things are what they are, and everything is meaningless in the end. That was the philosophy of Nietzsche.

''Life is short, we're all gonna die and you can't stop it forever... so why not make each others's lives worthwhile and enjoyable? The only thing that matters is letting people know that you care about them, because whatever someone is, has, or can do doesn't mean a damned thing in the end''.

And no, I'm not a nihilist. I've already made my points to exhaustion and the importance of T.S. Eliot is at best derivative from the original purpose of the thread so I will leave you with this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorial_intent

Author's intent is dead and has been so since the middle of the 20th century. Its a flawed and broken concept and it isn't even taught at the university level anymore. If you want to rebel against the established order that is fine but you have no right to say I don't have standing. The rest of the literary world agrees that authorial intent is meaningless. If you had even had a literature class in college then you would know that this is one of the first things they teach you.