"No two persons ever read the same book."
-Edmund Wilson
I have been asked several times by fellow students and professors, "Which is more important: a reader's interpretation of a book or the author's intended message?" This philosophical question, while deep and stimulating with its open-ended aim, misses the point of the study of English. I feel that both can be equally valuable, or entirely irrelevant; it all depends on the context in which the reading is taking place.
If reading is being done for historical purposes, then naturally an author's intent takes precedent over a reader's personal response to a text. It would be strange to teach a text such as All Quiet on the Western Front by Remarque and to ignore his message about the darkness of war in favor of a student's enjoyment of the battle scenes. Inversely, it would be odd to teach an interpretative piece such as Williams' The Red Wheelbarrow and to teach that it is entirely about capitalist struggles while ignoring student responses and interpretations.
Determining whether interpretation or intent are more important than one another is similar in my mind to determining whether a cook's intention while preparing a dish outweighs the opinion of the consumer. It all depends on the context, and I feel the same is true for different schools of criticism ('Reader Response, New Criticism, Marxism, etc...). Everyone encounters texts at different times in their lives, and the experiences and interpretations they walk away with will change during a subsequent encounter. What is important is that the reader formulates a coherent and rational stance or interpretation, and that they are able to explain it using evidence from the text that inspired it.
If reading is being done for historical purposes, then naturally an author's intent takes precedent over a reader's personal response to a text. It would be strange to teach a text such as All Quiet on the Western Front by Remarque and to ignore his message about the darkness of war in favor of a student's enjoyment of the battle scenes. Inversely, it would be odd to teach an interpretative piece such as Williams' The Red Wheelbarrow and to teach that it is entirely about capitalist struggles while ignoring student responses and interpretations.
Determining whether interpretation or intent are more important than one another is similar in my mind to determining whether a cook's intention while preparing a dish outweighs the opinion of the consumer. It all depends on the context, and I feel the same is true for different schools of criticism ('Reader Response, New Criticism, Marxism, etc...). Everyone encounters texts at different times in their lives, and the experiences and interpretations they walk away with will change during a subsequent encounter. What is important is that the reader formulates a coherent and rational stance or interpretation, and that they are able to explain it using evidence from the text that inspired it.