>The problem is that you have absolutely no basis for assuming what you pick up that you think is intended symbolism has anything to do with what the author is trying to convey unless they tell you.
Language is ambiguous, but not THAT ambiguous. People generally understand symbolic cues, unless we're talking about some extreme "avant guard" kind of art.
Most of these clues after all have been honed for millenia, and are part of the cultural landscape.
And if people are at least partially involved in art/literature etc, they learn even more of classic tropes and symbolic use of words (or images, in cinema).
And if the miss a few symbolisms, they can still get others in the same work, and have a general grap of the message. One of the joys with songs/poems/fiction etc is discovering new levels and depth you didn't see at first (e.g. as you gain more experience with life to relate to them, or as you learn some cultural information that helps you decipher a clue).
In the end, it's also up to how good the poet/writer/storyteller is, and how opaque or transparent he wants to make his story.
>People ignore "don't do drugs" not because it's straightforward, but because it is trying to command you to do something without making a persuasive argument why
Not really (from the point I come from). Even combined with a 8 page detailed pamphlet, with what can happen to you, side-effects et al, most young people still sneer at it and ignore it. For one, they think those things don't apply to them (they are industructible, they can control it, etc) and second they aren't cool.
Reasons are the uncoolest things to try to convince teenagers with.
It's when you spice up the story, make it cool, or make it impactful, that they might pay attention and think "hmm, maybe drugs aren't so good after all". That's what drug songs like "Needle and the damage done" can do, or books like "Less Than Zero". But at this point you're into symbolism and artifice too.
> Language is ambiguous, but not THAT ambiguous. People generally understand symbolic cues, unless we're talking about some extreme "avant guard" kind of art.
My experience is that the moment people start trying to interpret symbolism in literature, all bets are off and you can't assume they'll even apply basic logic.
> Most of these clues after all have been honed for millenia, and are part of the cultural landscape.
... most of the time without taking feedback from actual evidence. When faced with actual evidence (such as, e.g., asking the author) it all too often crumbles into nothing. I'm not questioning that people can sometimes pick it up. But I don't for a second believe that people are very at good at it, because I've seen all too many time how people supposedly good at it totally butcher works.
> And if people are at least partially involved in art/literature etc, they learn even more of classic tropes and symbolic use of words (or images, in cinema).
Part of the problem is that people massively over-interpret. The presence of something looks like a classic trope or symbolic use of words does not mean the author intended it, or was aware.
> Even combined with a 8 page detailed pamphlet, with what can happen to you, side-effects et al, most young people still sneer at it and ignore it.
That's because describing what can happen to you and side effects is not a persuasive argument for not taking drugs because it totally ignores why people take drugs in the first place, and because they don't provide any reasons to trust.
It's not like the author is the ultimate source. The text is.
An author can add symbolism also subcosciously, since its part of how we think in general (a symbol is a shortcut, a compressed metaphor/idea), and part of the cultural landscape too.
>The presence of something looks like a classic trope or symbolic use of words does not mean the author intended it, or was aware.
Might not mean it sometimes (it can be over-interpretation). Sometimes a banana is just a banana. But we've also have works were the majority of critics agree on their interpretation, including the author.
> It's not like the author is the ultimate source. The text is.
On what the author is trying to communicate, the author is the only source we can rely on.
> An author can add symbolism also subcosciously
He could, but since we can't reliably say anything about that, it is meaningless to make claims about it.
> Sometimes a banana is just a banana. But we've also have works were the majority of critics agree on their interpretation, including the author.
Whether or not a majority of critics agree is totally irrelevant to me. If the author agrees, that is a different matter. The problem is that so much of literary criticism happens without bothering to even try to check with the author. Unsurprisingly, authors quire regularly express surprise or exasperation at how literary critics interprets their works.
>On what the author is trying to communicate, the author is the only source we can rely on.
That's half true. Or wholly true if we put emphasis on his explicitly "trying to".
Because his work could also communicate other things that he wasn't trying, but are nethertheless apparent in the output.
Consider a racist writing his autobiography, and trying not to sound like a racist and avoids any open remark, but it still comes out in the text. In the same way, an authors beliefs and feelings on all kinds of things, even if subcoscious or hidden from himself, can also come out in the text, despite him not actually trying to communicate them.
If we don't consider just what the author explicitly tried to communicate, but all that's present in the final output, the author is not the "only source" anymore. We can also use other knowledge we have, of cultural norms, ideas of his era, symbolism, etc.
>Whether or not a majority of critics agree is totally irrelevant to me. If the author agrees, that is a different matter.
That's quite an inflexible view of literature/poetry etc, which has been shown to be lacking for near a century. Heck, even authors frequently say in their interviews: "I just put put these images and they are up to the reader to understand them in one way or another", or words to that effect. (Songwriters also are of this school very often: "my songs have no defined meaning, are open to interpretation etc".).
In the example of the racist author, how about if the author doesn't "agree" that his work is racist, but his working and portrayal of black characters makes evident that it is? It doesn't even need to be because he's lying, could just be that he considers the kind of attitude he has to blacks "objective" and "normal" and not racism.
The author is hardly the "only authority". If not for anything else because people have subconscious feelings, people hide things from themselves (even when they're not subconscious, they might downplay their importance when you talk to them, but come pouring down when they write), and of course, people lie.
Language is ambiguous, but not THAT ambiguous. People generally understand symbolic cues, unless we're talking about some extreme "avant guard" kind of art.
Most of these clues after all have been honed for millenia, and are part of the cultural landscape.
And if people are at least partially involved in art/literature etc, they learn even more of classic tropes and symbolic use of words (or images, in cinema).
And if the miss a few symbolisms, they can still get others in the same work, and have a general grap of the message. One of the joys with songs/poems/fiction etc is discovering new levels and depth you didn't see at first (e.g. as you gain more experience with life to relate to them, or as you learn some cultural information that helps you decipher a clue).
In the end, it's also up to how good the poet/writer/storyteller is, and how opaque or transparent he wants to make his story.
>People ignore "don't do drugs" not because it's straightforward, but because it is trying to command you to do something without making a persuasive argument why
Not really (from the point I come from). Even combined with a 8 page detailed pamphlet, with what can happen to you, side-effects et al, most young people still sneer at it and ignore it. For one, they think those things don't apply to them (they are industructible, they can control it, etc) and second they aren't cool.
Reasons are the uncoolest things to try to convince teenagers with.
It's when you spice up the story, make it cool, or make it impactful, that they might pay attention and think "hmm, maybe drugs aren't so good after all". That's what drug songs like "Needle and the damage done" can do, or books like "Less Than Zero". But at this point you're into symbolism and artifice too.