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Intentionalism suggests that the meaning of the work must be considered regarding the views of the author. Whilst according to anti-internationalists, you can generate a good understanding of the work solely based on literary techniques and ignore the author`s beliefs. The key to a good interpretation in the literary arts is how well the interpreter constructs their Interpretation by analyzing specific textual evidence, the primary literary techniques, and context using all available evidence to support the opinion. Thus, in literature, ignorance of context and the anti-intentionalist approach to literature analysis produce bad interpretations. That being the case, a good interpretation values the artist’s intention as an essential part of the contextual evidence of the text. For example, in my IB English class, we studied The United Fruit Company’ by Pablo Neruda. To put it succinctly, The United Fruit Company is about capitalism. It depicts the United States’ neo-imperialist intervention, highlighting the tyrants it has backed, as well as the damaging behavior of the Boston-sponsored United Fruit Company. In ‘The United Fruit Company’, Neruda directly addresses well-known South American dictators – ‘the dictatorship of flies: Trujillo flies, Tachos flies, Carias flies, Martinez flies, Ubico flies’. Simply attempting to interpret a quote in this poem without context or Neruda`s intentions in mind would be speculation. If an interpreter of this poem took the anti-intentionalist approach, they would dismiss that Neruda, being a Chilean politician, encourages his audience to form a strong social conscience to protect the vulnerable. This also highlights how the anti-intentionalist approach leaves readers to interpret literature based on language techniques, using intuition and emotion. In contrast, intentionalism and context force interpreters to use reason when interpreting literature. The literary arts should help us connect with the minds of others. What is the purpose of reading literature if it means anything we want it to mean? All texts have limits to their interpretability. To set apart the good interpretations from the bad in literature, one must look at how the interpretation has formed and whether the interpretation values the context and intentions of a writer.
Nevertheless, there are times when we don`t have access to contextual knowledge. For example, in my English class, we wrote an essay on an unseen extract. During the feedback session, my teacher highlighted some wrong interpretations. Students imposed all incorrect interpretations, so these interpretations lacked evidence from the text. When approaching unseen texts with no knowledge of the context, it`s common for readers to interpret wrong, as we are prone to overuse emotion and intuition as a way of knowing, leading us to impose interpretations on the text, based on our experiences. When building a good interpretation of an unseen extract, teachers encourage us to establish the literal meaning before developing the thesis or underlying interpretation. This demonstrates a clear understanding of what the extract means on a basic level before interpreting it, preventing us from imposing incorrect interpretations of the text as we can focus mainly on language and reason as ways of knowing first before we use emotion and intuition. When determining whether a good or bad interpretation of an unseen text has been formed, teachers examine whether a student has understood the key elements of the literal meaning of the text and then go further to incorporate the literal meaning of a text as part of the overarching statement and interpretation. Good interpretations will show how the interpreter`s understanding of the text links to its meaning on a literal level.
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