An author-centred reading surrounds the interpreting of literature based on an author's intentions, intended meaning and other biographical/social or emotional factors that lead him/her to create that piece of literature. The word "reductive" means to reduce or lesson and the word "misconceived" means to be misled or to judge on the basis of misunderstanding. An author centred reading of any piece of literature is indeed in various ways reductive as it limits one's interpretation and it is also misconceived as one will interpret details based on the author's background, reasons for writing and social as well as historical factors. Hence, without a doubt if one should employ an author-centred approach to the interpretation of a text his/her understanding will in various ways be reductive and misconceived.
A text should be consumed in the same way we consume our favourite fruit: we should put on a bib, hold it with both hands and sink our teeth in. When the juice is flowing we should lick it and continue its massacre until only the scent of it lingers. This is indeed the very same way we should approach any piece of literature: with little or no interference of the author but with continuous reading and thinking, analysing of all sorts, from the words' denotative meaning to their connotative representation. We should simply just accept and work with the piece of writing since Wimsatt and Beardsley 1972 propose in their essay The Intentional Fallacy: "the design or intention of the author is neither available nor desirable as a standard for judging the success of a work of literary art." With this said the notion embrace by many that the author's background plays a central role in what he/she writes is in various ways reductive. Take Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice for example, set in18th century male dominated England the female protagonist, Elizabeth Bennet, is portrayed as a cut above the rest where she goes against the grain of the society's social norms, speaks her mind and gets the rich man of her dreams. Now, if we should employ an author-centred approach to the interpretation of this text one would consider Austen's background. Was Austen like Elizabeth? In Austen's society women had little or no say in who they marry yet Elizabeth's outcome is the opposite. Not only does she not fit in to Austen's society but the background of Austen does not coincide with the life of Elizabeth. So, taken from Hawthorn's Unlocking the Text: Fundamental Issues in Literary Criticism, "the New Critics accepted that the author lived while he or she engaged in Literary composition, but lost all parental rights once the literary child was born...the author is traditionally conceived never existed." Also one agrees that, "...the author may have forgotten what he or she was trying to do in writing the work, or may have something to conceal- or may recognize that the work does not incorporate or engender what it was originally designed or intended to do." Hawthorn (1987)
Furthermore if we should base our understanding of a piece of literature on an author-centred form of interpretation due to the author's reasons for writing, one may have misconceived ideologies. "The author is therefore the ideological figure by which one marks the manner in which we fear the proliferation of meaning." Foucault (1979) So, when T. S. Eliot wrote, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" was he speaking of his own thwarted desires, his inability to make decisions or his hopes of speaking to the woman of his meandering thoughts?
Plato, one of the first persons to comment on the unreliability of authors as explicators or interpreters of their own work states that it is, "not by wisdom do poets write poetry but by a sort of genius inspiration." So, T. S. Eliot's reason for writing is irrelevant as well as there might just not have been a reason but rather the bear ingenuity of his pen. It is left up to the reader to sink his/her teeth into the literature and not be indecisive like Prufrock in eating a "peach". It is through this that varied lengths of meaning will surface. An author's reason for writing will not necessarily be the outcome of his product. What one plans to write and what one actually writes are two different concepts. What an author intends to write should not be equated to his actual work. "D. H. Lawrence commented upon Clifford Chatterley's incapability (in Lady Chatterley's Love) that, 'The story came as it did, by itself, so I left it alone.'" Hawthorn 1987. Therefore a piece of work will take on its own spirit and will only mean what the reader wants it to mean.
In addition, the social as well as the historical issues of an era will not inevitably ooze through every pore and cell or every letter and line of what an author writes. Take for example Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Minagerie", the social concerns of America in the 1940s do not steer the play. Should we base everything that Tom and Amanda Wingfield do on the fact that World War II is taking place? The concerns surrounding World War II are not a part of Tennessee's play as it is pure fiction and the characters are fictitious creations that come about on impulse and are partially involuntary.
Nonetheless, one cannot dispute the fact that the creator of a piece of literature is not in one way or the other an inseparable chromosome of that piece of literature. Works such as Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est" and Dennis Scott's "An Echo in the Bone" are undivorceable from the social concerns of World War II and Slavery respectively. However in taking an author-centred approach to interpreting these pieces of work one will definitely have various misconceptions and a reductive amateur understanding of their contents. Hence, in carrying out an author-centred reading one must be prepared to have misconceptions and reduced interpretations. Some critics even go as far as to argue that "authorial intention cannot be discarded or ignored..." and that, " where a writer is most creative and original the presence of social or cultural factors may be detected either as determining influence or as open or concealed subject matter..." Hawthorn (1987). Others talk about biographies and autobiographies; however, these like other kinds of information about the author, are simply texts too, which are also open to interpretation. For all these reasons Barthes (1978) debated for the "death of the author", which he claimed was necessary to allow for the "birth of the reader" and the myriad of interpretations that readers can produce.
Therefore, one stands resolute in the belief that the idea of an author-centred reading will without doubt yield various misconceived ideologies and reduces one's ability to fully interpret a text. The background, reasons and social/historical factors of the author do not have to steer his/her work. So, in order for the text to come alive, one must read and re-read and make independent judgements.
REFERNECES
1. "Approaches to reading practices, A resource for English Extension"
Queensland Studies Authority November 2011, Retrieved October 5th, 2012
2. Bennett, Andrew and Nicholas Royle. "The Author" An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory: Key Concepts. London: Prentice Hall, 1995.
3. Barthes, R. "The death of the author", in Image, Music, Text (trans. S Heath), Hill & Wang, New York, 1978. 142-48
4. Foucault, J. "What is an author?", in D Bouchard (ed.) Language, Counter-Memory, Practice, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY. 1979.
5. Hawthorn, Jeremy. "Genesis" Unlocking the Text: Fundamental Issues in Literary Theory London: Edward Arnold, 1987.
6. Wimsatt, W. K. and Monroe C. Beardsley. "The Intentional Fallacy". The Verbal Icon London: Methuen, 1970-1972.
