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What is the point of literary analysis?

Haphazard

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This may seem like an academic topic but it seems more philosophical to me.

Seriously, what is the point? Why are we analyzing the writer's intent when we cannot know? What's the point of trying to psychoanalyze a writer and trying to figure out what they 'really meant' when they didn't know themselves? How many writers deeply analyze their own writing as much as students in school are forced to? Does analysis of a piece kill it, like how explaining a good joke does?

Discuss.
 

poppy

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I don't think that analyzing literature gives us much insight into what the author thinks, but it can give us a lot of insight into how we think as individuals. Of course, literary analysis in schools isn't practiced that way, it's practiced as if there is a definite meaning and you have to find evidence to support your guess at what the author's point was. But ultimately what the author was saying really isn't that important.
 

Jeffster

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To give high school/college English teachers jobs.
 

Z Buck McFate

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I think the point of reading/dissecting any great piece of literature is to learn more about ourselves as human beings. The more analysis a piece can endure- the more truth there is to be found about human nature.
 

Z Buck McFate

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It's kind of like the grown-up version of 'playing pretend'. Kids play pretend with each other all the time to sort of 'practice' being human with each other. Adults use literature to do this in their head.

I think. That's my theory anyway.
 

Jaguar

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I think the point of reading/dissecting any great piece of literature is to learn more about ourselves as human beings. The more analysis a piece can endure- the more truth there is to be found about human nature.

Absolutely.
 

Athenian200

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Simple. When a writer creates something, they no longer truly "own" what they've created, regardless of what copyright lawyers may want you to believe. It takes on a life of it's own, and has the meaning that people tend to assign and read into it... independently of the author. It's likely that even if what the audience senses is correct, it would be on such an unconscious level that the author would be unaware of their own intentions!

What a person is really asking when they say, "analyze the author's intent," is, "if you had written this, and you had lived under similar circumstances as the author, why do you imagine YOU would have written it, and what do you think your motivations would have been?" It's an exercise in empathy, not logic.

I find it particularly interesting, because I've actually spent a lot of time using and examining things like computer programs, art, and writing, trying to get into the heads of the people who created them and understand what kind of people they were. I mostly did this because I was so mistrustful of what people say about themselves directly, that I felt that I needed to look at the things they made as a way of getting access to a level of them behind what they project, that they can't hide or mask quite as easily.

In other words... you can't know an author's motivations, but constantly attempting to guess what they might have been can help you develop better empathy and intuition about what people's motives might be in general. I do know that eventually, the more books, programs, or pieces of art I analyzed, the more "on-target" my analyses tended to become. If it's possible to create something in a specific way, it's also possible to take something apart and figure out how it was constructed, and get a vague clue as to WHY it was constructed.

It's like archeology. We dig up old buildings, but the people who built them are gone... we don't KNOW why they built them, but we develop a sense of human nature that gives us an ability to take an educated guess. The same kind of sense applies to literature, I suppose.

It's about learning how to think in terms of a "good answer" or a "meaningful answer" rather than "right/wrong answer."
 

Tiltyred

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My English professor at Old Dominion University used to say that Robert Frost complained, "You squeeze my poetry too much," meaning that all the deep meanings were really not there.

The thing is, they are, though. The writer may not have intended them as the piece was being written, but you can trace thoughts and patterns back through his writing and find patterns, and argue a meaning of those patterns.

I love literary analysis. It's such an exercise in critical thinking, and it can range from as basic as the word choice, the nuts and bolts of the composition, to the ideas and how they interplay, what allusions are made for what reasons, what symbols are created -- so many ways to approach it, and so much to bring to light (if you're lucky).
 

Jaguar

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My English professor at Old Dominion University used to say that Robert Frost complained, "You squeeze my poetry too much," meaning that all the deep meanings were really not there.

The thing is, they are, though. The writer may not have intended them as the piece was being written, but you can trace thoughts and patterns back through his writing and find patterns, and argue a meaning of those patterns.

I love literary analysis. It's such an exercise in critical thinking, and it can range from as basic as the word choice, the nuts and bolts of the composition, to the ideas and how they interplay, what allusions are made for what reasons, what symbols are created -- so many ways to approach it, and so much to bring to light (if you're lucky).

I love literary analysis too.
I better-- I have two degrees: Psychology and English/Literature.
Of course I psychoanalyze what is written.

Years ago a highly controversial novel was published. 1991, or so.
It was Brett Easton Ellis's AMERICAN PSYCHO.
Now that will test your analytical skills.
The author really dumped his psychological problems into that novel.
But the majority of the public got the meaning of the book, backwards.
It shocked Ellis, that he received such immense backlash from women.
He even had death threats.
This is what happens when you are that good at your satirical craft.

I would call up my friends and read them excerpts, just to mess with their heads.
"Jag you sick bastard! What ARE you reading to me?"

It's hilarious when people take satire seriously. :D
 
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