Does the author Matter?

In all of my English classes there seems to be some sort of background debate over whether or not the author of a piece matters. Some classes (and thus the professors teaching them) claim that we cannot get the full depth and understanding of a work of literature unless we can see where the author was coming from, what they were trying to say and the lives they lived before and after they said it.

The other side is that once the words are published on the page, read by a reader, the story is no longer the author's property. The ideas and images that appear in the readers' heads are their own, and not subject to post-reading adjustments from the author. If you didn't get that Dumbledore was gay, does that mean Rowling had to tell us at a reading of the book or does that mean that, if she wanted to get that concept across, she should have written it into the book better. Was it right of her to say that about her character or should she have left it up to the interpretation of each reader? To continue on a topic glanced on in class; does it really matter WHO wrote Shakespeare's plays and sonnets? Would the works have any more or less beauty, merit, poetry, or value if it was discovered that a woman wrote everything, or if Shakespeare was gay? Or if it was a ghost writer all along? No. The plays would still me masterpieces of literature, open to interpretation by the masses. The plays should have no less value or no greater value (though you can bet people would try to change that). I feel that an author can create characters and stories and make them however they want, yet they should also know that truly great works of art and literature can become greater than the authors themselves.

Reflecting on the discussion we had in class a couple of things came to mind. First was that the example used in Myer's piece, where he used Huck Finn to demonstrate how people can become idealogized (sp?) to certain social concepts, can also be used to explain Bruffee's thoughts on how Truths are created by a society arriving at an agreed-upon concept. In the Finn example, Huck's belief that he is 'wrong' to help Jim escape his master is a belief instilled into him because (most) everyone he knows agrees that slavery is the norm, slaves are property, and that it is wrong to steal or destroy another man's property. These ideas, these laws, (and by being laws prove that people agree upon them as Truths) were not formed in Huck's mind but were instead put there by his interactions with his society, thus helping to prove Bruffee's theory that Truth is arrived through agreement and discourse and is not Absolute.

The second thought that came to me occurred when we (the Bruffee group, i.e. Purple Cards) were trying to explain the idea that Bruffee's form of Truth is fluid. Unlike the Absolute Truths, which are a goal to be reached and are unchanging, Bruffee hypothesizes that Truth is only Truth until the people who agreed it was change their minds about it. I felt that a quote from a popular movie in 1997 would help to simplify the concept.

“Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow.”

The Truths of human society and existence are constantly evolving and changing. New knowledge is revealed or discovered that has and will change the way we view our world around us. To bring in the ideas of several other authors that we have read so far; I believe, as they do, that it is incredibly important for us as teachers to be open and willing to question not just the knowledge we are to teach, but where that knowledge comes from and why it even exists or was thought of in the first place. And this questioning, questing spirit is something we should strive to instill in all of our students.

(and yes, I DID just quote Men in Black for a Graduate level course).

So... I've been meaning to post on this site for about two weeks. I had the blog name and site picked out and was ready to go in September. However I just seemed like every time I'd sit down to write I'd have nothing to write about. I have several friends that keep up with there blog entries on a regular basis, most of whom have tried to get me to write one. I've always thought that I had nothing worth saying in a blog. The way most of my friends use it is as a medium for random tidbits about their lives, their journals, or gossip. I've kinda found it pointless to write on the same sort of subjects since I do not enjoy reading them. I do not follow anyone's blog regularly (excepting of course all of yours, seeing as now it is part of class) because, to be honest, I'm not really interested in 'just how hot' the guy at the mall was or 'how obnoxious the test in that class was'.

So I've never started a blog, since I've never felt what I had to write within this medium would be worth reading.

However, thanks to the powers of academia (and my strong desire not to fail) I now will plunge head-long into the world of blogging.

Since right now I'm still unsure as to what I will allow myself to put on here, how much of myself I want to show you all (and how much of me you all might want to read about) I'm going to start with a list of topics I may or may not post on throughout the semester. I'll try to start with topics pertaining to our class, but the list is a little random as i plan on using this blog to motivate myself to focus on writings that have little to do with class.

List of potential topics:

-My opinions and thoughts on the articles and materials read in class.

-My comments on class discussions that I didn't
have the time to flesh out in class.

-Thoughts and ideas from other classes that intertwine with ours.

-Random bits about my day, things going on about campus, town, etc...

-Segments from my own writings outside of class
(I write mainly high-fantasy fiction).

-I'm almost always in the mood to discuss books I've read
so I might do that here.

-Anything from movies to video games to television series I think
everyone should see.

-Also, I plan on keeping a weekly update on what goes on
with my Gear Up work at BU High.

So, this may be what I talk about in this blog. Or I may do something completely different. As the title shows, this is probably going to be pretty random and rambling. (Kinda like this first post).