Authorial intent

As intention of a literary work is defined as the intention is pursued with or in the factory. The literary theory differs substantially between the intentio auctoris (which the author of a text imputed intent ) and the intentio operis ( the intention of the text itself ). Often also is the intentio lectoris, so that the intention of the particular reader is referred to, considered in the theory of literature.

Author 's intention

The intention of the author is often to draw the reader's attention to something, to move the reader to something or to convey something or teach him something. Often the intention is also to provide entertainment. In addition, the term intention with regard to the author to describe a variety of other aspects used in the creative process; partially distinction is made between " the motive to write " and " the intention when writing " - utter two different but partially overlapping aspects.

The author may follow several basic intentions:

• Appellative: appeal to the reader ( for example, to move advertising with the intention of the reader to buy a product, or a party program of a party )
• Informative: Information for the reader ( values ​​= neutral texts such as news, press releases )
• Expressive: expression (expression) of author: expression to arouse certain emotions in the reader, such as solidarity, compassion, sorrow, joy ( in novels, or epic texts)

Is recourse to the author 's intention in the context of scholarly editing, when it comes to establish or to reconstruct the original form of a text.

In recent decades, interest has by literature science waned to the intent of the author, and lost its original meaning, nachdenm Roland Barthes published his essay on the death of the author, and thus postulated that the author of literary studies should be treated as dead.

However, an exception in modern literary theory and science is the American literary scholar ED Hirsch, who developed his notion of the author 's intention further so that it also includes elements that follow logically from the original intent of the author. Hirsch sees the intention so as the basis of a scientifically oriented interpretation, which otherwise have no criteria to distinguish correct from incorrect interpretation of lyrics.

The concept of author intent is used as a regulative idea in some versions of literary hermeneutics for the evaluation of interpretations of a work. However, this does not exclude that the author of a literary text its ( real ) intentions did not know well or even misunderstood, nor that he was able to implement this properly.

This can be an analogy to the hermeneutic circle formulate the so-called " fallacy of intentionality " ( " intentional fallacy "). This states that if the intention of the author is accomplished in his work, is therefore realized in the factory, it is a circular argument, in turn, to use for the interpretation of a work.

Since the 70s, the intention is provided as a basis for interpretation of the text by poststructuralism in particular by Foucault and Derrida in question; the idea of the origin and fixed meaning of the literary text is fed into this ( literary ) scientific approaches absurdity and. already just by the performative aspect of language to a highly problematic criterion for text interpretation

Text intention

The intentio operis is the "task", which has a book. For example, a textbook has develop the task, whereas a novel can have the intention to entertain.

Readers intention

The reader's intention can be very different, and this also depends on the intentio operis. If the reader is reading a textbook, he wants to continue their education in general, he reads a novel, he wants to be mostly entertained.