Death of the Author
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 ธ.ค. 2018
- What is brand can never die.
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Sources:
Baillie, Katie. “JK Rowling Says Lupin's Condition Is 'a Metaphor Illnesses with a Stigma'.” Metro, Associated Newspapers Limited , 12 Sept. 2016, metro.co.uk/2016/09/09/jk-rowling-says-remus-lupins-condition-as-a-werewolf-is-a-metaphor-for-hiv-and-aids-6118903/.
Carey, Tanith. “The 'Sick-Lit' Books Aimed at Children: It's a Disturbing Phenomenon. Tales of Teenage Cancer, Self-Harm and Suicide...” The Daily Mail, Associated Newspapers Ltd., 3 Jan. 2013, www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2256356/The-sick-lit-books-aimed-children-Its-disturbing-phenomenon-Tales-teenage-cancer-self-harm-suicide-.html?fbclid=IwAR34ncjXSmMyIFivwUIWdxwui4r1U_XSnfFAVfHS5-2n_egZCUK5Vl8e2Io.
Crowley, Laura. “‘The Fault in Our Stars’ Exploits Human Suffering.” The Bucknellian, The Bucknellian, 17 Apr. 2013, bucknellian.blogs.bucknell.edu/2013/04/17/the-fault-in-our-stars-exploits-human-suffering/.
Green, John. The Fault in Our Stars. Dutton Books, 2012.
Green, John. “Questions about The Fault in Our Stars (SPOILERS!).” John Green Books, John Green, 2 Aug 2012, www.johngreenbooks.com/questio...
Guarino, Morgan. “35 Major Life Facts According To Nick Miller.” The Odyssey Online, Odyssey Media Group, Inc, 20 Mar. 2017, www.theodysseyonline.com/35-life-facts-according-to-nick-miller.
Rice, Anne. “Anne's Messages to Fans.” Anne Rice the Official Site, Anne Rice, 14 Sept. 2009, annerice.com/ReaderInteraction-MessagesToFans.html.
@jk_rowling (J.K. Rowling). “Canon: brown eyes, frizzy hair and very clever. White skin was never specified. Rowling loves black Hermione 😘” Twitter, 21 Dec 2015, 5:41 AM, jk_rowling/status...
Shoger, Scott. “John Green: Novelist, Vlogger, Force for Good.” NUVO, NUVO.net, 30 May 2014, www.nuvo.net/arts/written_spoken_word/john-green-novelist-vlogger-force-for-good/article_49103d8f-7cd1-5830-afd3-66abfd7fd22f.html.
Sarah Z. JK Rowling and Authorial Intent. TH-cam, TH-cam, 12 Nov 2018, • JK Rowling and Authori...
Vlogbrothers. I Love Hank: Esther Day 2010. TH-cam, TH-cam, 2 Aug 2010, • I Love Hank: Esther Da... .
Vlogbrothers. Rest In Awesome, Esther. TH-cam, TH-cam, 27 Aug 2010, • Rest In Awesome, Esther .
Vlogbrothers. With Esther. TH-cam, TH-cam, 5 July 2010, • With Esther .
Waldman, Katy. “John Green Is a Hero of the Teen Internet. Is He to Blame for the Controversy Around Him?” Slate Magazine, The Slate Group LLC, 7 July 2015, slate.com/culture/2015/07/john-green-author-of-paper-towns-and-the-fault-in-our-stars-is-the-most-loved-and-hated-person-on-the-teen-internet.html?fbclid=IwAR1LjjINnt1tq8IiFuUVa8klFsHqij8zdfvpZ3GNPJJwIoOvLg9G8CpVPfE.
Ward, Hollie. “The Death of John Green.” On The Scene Magazine, On The Scene, 6 Feb. 2016, onthescenemag.co.uk/the-death-of-john-green.
Waters, Darren. “Entertainment | Rowling Backs Potter Fan Fiction.” BBC News, BBC, 27 May 2004, news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3753001.stm.
Willette , Jeanne. “Michel Foucault: ‘What Is an Author?".” Art History Unstuffed, Art History Unstuffed, 24 Jan. 2014, arthistoryunstuffed.com/michel-foucault-what-author/. - บันเทิง
Hi! Lindsay, thank you for inviting me to be part of this video. I really enjoyed the video and the nuanced take on a very difficult subject. I wanted to clarify one thing I've seen in comments: I don't think the video implied it, but just to be clear: The Fault in Our Stars is not, like, fanfic about a real person. I started writing The Fault in Our Stars many years before I even met Esther. My friendship with Esther definitely informed the story especially in thinking about Hazel and Van Houten, but Hazel is not Esther (Hazel isn't Gus, either, for that matter.) Esther's own story was published by her family in a brilliant book called This Star Won't Go Out, which I recommend. Anyway, I know that the author appearing in comments in a video about death of the author is too many layers of meta, but here we are in 2019. -John
Death of the Author 2: The Undead
who the EFF is JOHN?!?
God damn, you two. All the thinks and the feels.
This was a nice vid. Also kudos to the least heartfelt promotional talk at the end :p
My copy of "Infinite Jest" is now lurking at me. Thanks John, thanks a lot.
John I read your book without knowing you at all or any of the paratext of Esther and I found it incredibly compelling, touching and human, which is why I sought you out. It’s ironic, but I’m that person that subscribed to vlogbrothers because of the book and not the other way around.
my good friend Derrida
Yours too
An iconic quote
I knew I remembered that from somewhere. Love to see a nice little callback from one favorite TH-camr towards another, it warms my cold, dead heart.
I understood that reference!
I laughed
I can't believe she didn't refer to JK Rowling as You-Know-Who.
Holy crap. That's a good idea
6:16
I mean, at least unlike A.R. (the one from N.O.) if you speak her name there won't be surly lawyers turning up at your doorstep like magic.
She-who-must-not-be-named
The problem with that is that in this category she is above average. Rolling is complicated and certainly deserves to be called out for the trans exclusivity but is also pen official and other ways. In many ways the Postumus complications of albus dumbledore to war are very much reflected in her character in all of this.
There's this tale in my country that reads like this: a farmer had this only donkey in his property, but he was in dire need of funds, so he decided to sell it. But, before he could do it, the donkey died. Shortly after the misfortune, he runs into a friend, who sympathizes with his loss:
- I'm sorry that your donkey died, I know you were depending on it to raise money for your farm.
- Well, I still managed to sell it.
- How so?
- I did a kind of a lottery, I sold a thousand tickets at one dollar each.
- And nobody complained that the prize was dead?
- Only the winner.
- And how did you solve it?
- I gave him his one dollar back.
JK is just still milking that corpse of a donkey over and over. Granted she's making a lot of money out of those tickets, but... yikes. (and I feel like the winner, btw).
ancap 100
What's your country if I may?
That’s an amazing story! What country is it from? (if that’s not too weird a question)
This is Great.
I guess you could consider that "donkey business". :-D
19:16 "What kind of a grown-ass man writes a sex scene between two dying teenagers?" My first thought? Shakespeare
LMFAO
I'm honestly a little sad she didn't ask that to his face later. Not that I think it's a legitimate criticism; I just wanted to see his reaction because I'm a bad person.
Best comment.
I totally thought Lindsay E. is gonna walk out to the balcony and get wooed by some Romeo or other!
Eh, she was fine when it was a romance between a teenage girl and a billion year old vampire, though.
Did you put my book next to Kim Stanley Robinson just to get me all hot and bothered? Because it worked.
-- Hank
i think the more important question is how you had infinite jest while it was still on the shelf
👀👀😉
Red hot and bothered? Green with envy? Or blue with shock?
You’re also beside Cory Doctorow’s Walkaway, which seems very Hank Green, too.
Weird flex, but okay.
Anne Rice literally wrote a BDSM erotic fanfiction of sleeping beauty and then demands her fans create their own characters. Come on.
To clarify: that "book" was not representative of BDSM. That book focuses on sexual dominance without consent. Ann Rice wrote a story about an abused neglected girl being raped, physically abused, and then abandoned as an object. Consensual nonconsent (or "Rape Play") is a kink shared by a lot of people, but very clear defined consent is established first. Otherwise, it's just rape.
@@mr.rotten7542 As someone who's a fan of a lot of "problematic" fiction, I would argue that such fiction shouldn't have to be grounded in reality and its rules. Such stories are the fantasy that you would play out. Instead of a safe-word with a partner, it's you and a book you can open and shut as you like. An exception would be novels that do ground themselves and label themselves as BDSM or even as a healthy relationship, but break the rules, like in 50 Shades. I would argue that an escapist fantasy completely divorced from reality where some innocent maiden is ravished by a pirate is better than a story that has a clearly abusive person call their abuse BDSM and encourage people to use unsafe stuff like zipties. One is clearly fantasy while the other could color a reader's perception of what is normal/acceptable from a real life partner. Another exception I would make would be for fiction geared toward younger audiences that don't have the experience and knowledge to see all the red flags.
@C.C. L.
Fair point. I was specifically reacting to the original comment of "BDSM erotic fanfiction", but you're right. Nowhere in Anne Rice's novel is the term BDSM mentioned. I'd argue though that the protagonist never seemed to be aroused (which I personally consider essential in any erotic writing) even subconsciously. Although it has been a while since I read it, and rape fantasy is not my kink so I can't say I enjoyed it lol
@@mr.rotten7542 ->consentual nonconsent
Loooool
Is it "fanfiction" when the original story is as old as sleeping beauty and has already been reimagined lots of times before rather than using specific characters / versions of those characters from a specific work?
Video subtitle pitch: The Foucault in Our Stars
beautiful
Stahp
lol just who
Brilliant yo!
Lmao...nice.
*Lindsay uses The Fault In Our Stars and John Green to demonstrate Death of the Author.*
"Oh man, doesn't John Green watch these videos? His brother was in one after all, I wonder what he'd think of this-"
*A wild John Green appears.*
"...you know...I should have seen that coming..."
Through the whole video I was wondering how Lindsay’s interaction with the Greens affects the content of this video, which kinda proves her point
"My good friend Derrida."
*ContraPoints has left the chat*
*I d o n t g e t i t p l e a s e e x p l a i n*
@@nxgan1088 In the video "Why I Quit Academia," Natalie relates an anecdote about a snobby professor who insisted on calling Derrida "my good friend Derrida" as a way of humblebragging / namedropping.
It’s a reference to a TH-camr/close friend of Lindsay known as Contrapoints. In one of her videos, she referred to a pedantic professor she had who kept name dropping Derrida and referring to him as “my good friend Derida”. It also helps a lot of Lindsay Ellis fans are also Contrapoints fans.
@@nxgan1088 ContraPoints is a politic chanel wich has many memes, Example this.
@@tatehildyard5332 I know contrapoints, I don't watch her too much but i do enjoy her content, I did not, however know about that. You learn something new every day. Thanks my man
Why did it take me until now to realize that John Green the Crash Course host is also the John Green who wrote The Fault In Our Stars
I just figured it out because there was a picture of him on a funny authors collage on Pinterest. That's how I found this video. I watched vlogbros videos for years and had no idea he was John Green, the author.
I found out through his wiki page and I was shocked
I literally just found out through this video and exclaimed when his picture was shown 😂
I even still had my doubts until I finished the video and read these comments xD
and his brother hank does science and looks almost identical to john😭
Esther was my friend. I was not expecting to see her here. I almost cried because it's been so long since I've seen her or heard her voice. That's not the point of the video. But I thought I would share.
Sending lots of love
The author is dead... up until I dig their body back up, perform necromantic rituals, shake them down for answers, and then disregard those answers because I don't like them. Also, the canon is gospel until I say it's not because the author can't tell me what to do.
@@jhopewell4208 I'm... not sure I want to understand.
That is a spot on impression of my subconscious you've got there.
Yes. Was the author speaking as a prophet or a fallible mortal? Can we get an 11 year old to perform the necromancy?
Oh lookie, it's the Star Wars fandom! :D
@@mattpaxton3528 Really? I think that is just the ideal fan experience. I sure as hell follow this method everytime, everywhere. It is liberating as hell.
Nice to see someone else's takes on Jowling Kowling Rowling! The paratext section was really interesting, and not really something I talked about in my video, so I'm glad someone else did :)
Oh hey I just subscribed to you!!!
I was thinking of your video the whole way through that section on Rowling!
what is this a crossover episode
Ah! It was YOUR video on the subject I watched recently!
omg i loved ur video
Jowling Kowling Rowling
I feel like such a child but that made me laugh so hard
Living for the nineties HR training aesthetic
Until you said gay Vampires I heard you say Anne Rice but thought it was Ayn Rand and I was like "who's writing that fanfic???"
lmao I went through the exact same thought process, glad I'm not alone
I mean Ken Levine wrote BioShock sooooo
Erm, Bioshock is fanfic of Ayn Rand in the same sense that Starship Troopers the movie is fanfic of Starship Troopers the book... in that the person who wrote the fic clearly wasn’t a fan...
Guy Boo I know. I was joking.
LuluSoBlue So... you were trying to affect irony without emphasizing any contradiction? K, I guess I’ll take your word for it.
Funny story about Authorial Intent- my friends and I went to see Bladerunner 2049 in the cinema on its release day or soon after. Throughout the movie at moments of intense drama the soundtrack was interspersed by a discordant series of staccato cracks, like a Geiger counter. On the drive home we discussed the movie, and one of the subjects was what the clicks represented. We came to the conclusion that they swelled whenever the main character was experiencing doubt about his identity (being a robot, an artificial mechanical sound was used). One of the group went to see the film again on his own at a different cinema nearer to his house, and he was perplexed that the clicks were not there. It transpired that the cinema we went to the first time had a faulty sound system that caused it to make those weird noises whenever the music swelled (such as at moments of drama), and we had just assumed they were part of the movie. We all had a good laugh about it, but what makes my noodle is- if we had never learnt that the clicks weren't supposed to be there, would our interpretation still have been wrong?
That's really interesting. I would've just thought somebody had a weird ring tone.
I had an epic unique experience with that movie too [SPOILERS]. For some reason, when the giant hologram says "you look like you'd be a good Joe" my brain interpreted "Joe" as a slang for "customer of a prostitute". But later I re-discovered that the real life slang for that is "John", and that my interpretation was wrong. So I experienced an epic, devastating Blade Runner Pun that wasn't in the movie. (though, yes, the intended interpretation of the line is still a pun, it's just not as epic)
"if we had never learnt that the clicks weren't supposed to be there, would our interpretation still have been wrong?"
Yeah. Truth is an independent entity to your interpretation of objective fact. The sounds were not supposed to be there, so your interpretation is incorrect even if you don't know the truth. "Fire" doesn't cease to exist because a given inuit interpreted from the world around him that it doesn't exist.
@@numberpi5473 But would the truth of their interpretation of the movie at the time, given the facticity of their environment, be an accurate reading of the movie. Maybe not the authoritative reading of the film, but one that was as accurate as possible given the environment.
I think it's super interesting to accidentally bring in the medium in which the film's being shown as part of the interpretation. Especially given that the film is both about how technology is becoming largely independent of its "authorial" intent, and the effect that that has as this technology decays.
Well your interpretation was based purely on the effects of a local cinema sound fault, so yes. Your interpretation is wrong because you connected the clicks to emotional swells in the story related to the characters sense of self when in reality those clicks were a literal fault.
How you interpreted is very interesting, and I don't doubt that those swells in the music were likely emotional cues that you guys were picking up on. But your subjective experience of the work does not change the nature of the work itself, only your experience of it.
" All worthy work is open to interpretations the author did not intend. Art isn't your pet -- it's your kid. It grows up and talks back to you. "
- iffy Joss Whedon
Sounds like Stephen King too.
It's not really tho. The art doesn't talk back to you, it's the fans viewing the art and telling you that you made your point wrong. You know the point you thought out and created and put into the piece with that thought and creation in mind.
The art is just sitting there, giving no input because it can't. Art is nothing without the person to create it and the people to see it.
Everyone sees something different in art and then they make a hundred and one loopholes for why their view is the right one for their own validation. That's fine.
But then getting in the creators face and telling them the point that they created and put into the work isn't the right one isn't fine.
You can't twist someone's piece of work to follow your own ideas. That's not how it works.
Nah, the art is just reflecting back what you’re thinking and want to hear or see. What gets reflected back at you changes as you change.
@@StarrChild. Is the art separate from its audience? Even if nobody else comes into contact with it, part of your relationship with it is as audience.
Abusing an author because of your headcanon is absurd, but so is delegitimising the audience's right to create any interpretation they want.
Some theories have more and less evidence within the text to support them, but so what? Someone being 'bad' audience doesn't stop them being audience. Similarly 'bad' interpretations.
Nobody has any right to have anyone agree with them - authors and audience equally.
I find this an especially relevant quote for this topic, given that a side-character from Season 4 of Buffy has been given a makeover by fans. Instead of a gung-ho military guy that's all about the mission and thinks Buffy is getting in the way, as he is portrayed in the show, now he's got a case of the secret gays and everything Forrest does is out of jealousy over Buffy's relationship with Riley.
“What is it about Death of the Author that appeals to you, the reader?”
The death 💀
When I watched this, I remembered in a biography of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle a poem he wrote in response to a critic's poem criticizing the author to not have Sherlock Holmes criticize other fictional detectives when he owed their influences:
"To An Undiscerning Critic"
Sure there are times when one cries with acidity,
'Where are the limits of human stupidity?'
Here is a critic who says as a platitude
That I am guilty because 'in gratitude
Sherlock, the sleuth-hound, with motives ulterior,
Sneers at Poe's Dupin as "very inferior".'
Have you not learned, my esteemed communicator,
That the created is not the creator?
As the creator I've praised to satiety
Poe's Monsieur Dupin, his skill and variety,
And have admitted that in my detective work
I owe to my model a deal of selective work.
But is it not on the verge of inanity
To put down to me my creation's crude vanity?
He, the created, would scoff and would sneer,
Where I, the creator, would bow and revere.
So please grip this fact with your cerebral tentacle:
The doll and its maker are never identical.
- 28 December 1912 London Times
Edit: Holy cow, Thanks for the likes! I was not expecting this...
That’s a killer final line
Reminds me too when Clint Eastwood came under fire for "supporting assisted suicide" in one of his movies.
His response was something along the lines of "I'm just telling a story. I have made other movies where I run around and shoot people with a Magnum gun. Doesn't mean that I think that is good either."
SNAPE WAS A SINGLE MOTHER
(Edit : also my first TH-cam Video of 2019)
RON WAS BLACK
GUESS WHICH CHARACTERS WERE GAY!
ALL OF THEM!
HERMIONE WAS A GHOST THE WHOLE TIME
HARRY POTTER HAS DOWN SYNDROME
Iain 97 lmao
"Fanfiction." *City Of Bones appears*
Tea
Ohhhh yesssss.... had a friend who printed the original fanfic to get it signed by the author.
I laughed TOOOO much
I cackled.
I've killed plenty of authors before and it has not helped me one bit in deconstructing literature.
This comment is INSANE out of context, and barely less so in it.
I love it
I've put Stephen King in every Stephen King novel I've ever read: it's hard not to when every main character is an author and lives in Maine
"Fanfiction"
*shows the Mortal Insturments*
S A V A G E
I thank you for clarifying that it was, in fact, just an insult. I've never read those books so when that happened I half thought I missed another "fan-fiction becomes published with names swapped" thing.
@@RectPropagation that's exactly what those books read like tbh
@@imheretoo6619 and from someone who actually tried to power through and read all the way to City of Lost Souls (plus 2/3 of the prequel series -.-), that insetuous weirdness never actually goes away... Clary's actual brother is /really/ into her (yikes)
(I think I even remember something about him being down for a 3some with Clare and Jace, but it's been awhile so I might be wrong)
Mortal Instruments is terribad, but don't compare it to fanfiction and transformative works. Like with all literature, there is good and there is bad. And fanfic is no exception.
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and the Pokémon fanfiction Beasts and Beauties are fantastic well written works with really interesting takes with their respective universes.
Not to mention how many god awful original works that lurk about Barnes & Noble and Amazon......
I've read fanfiction that was every bit as good as most classic literature. Some that were better. People need to stop dragging the genre.
Cant we approach it like Schrodinger's Author? Interpret the text how we'd like, but accept the author had an intent but dont give it too much weight?
That makes sense to me. Although literary analysis doesn't.
I do that most of the time.
The author is both dead and not, alive and unalive.
If you start adding quantum theories to reading literature then every book becomes SciFi. No matter the genre of the text what the book is really about is the parallel universe where the canon reading of the character's lives outside of the text is dictacted by the author's intent and the universe where you interpret it yourself based only on the text.
+rockerchair
Shoooosh. You’re making sense and pushing civility on the internet. You’re not doing the internet right!
Lol you showed City of Bones when you mentioned Harry Potter fan fiction, I'm dead 😂
It’s factual that The Mortal Instruments series started off as a Draco Malfoy and Ginny Weasley fanfiction. Lol.
@@haybonvan3116 And that shit was F I R E. I STILL have the Draco Trilogy squirreled away in my email. 😂
I really didn't expect to be gut-punched by memories of a time when I was an awkward teenager. At 17, I was a HUGE vlogbrothers fan, I went to both the Fault in our Stars tour and the midnight premiere of Deathly Hallows part 2, and wore my prized Hufflepuff scarf to both.
It was only a few years later that the youtube algorithm took me from thoughtful educators, slowly down the alt-right pipeline, from science thinkers, philosophers, Atheist movement leaders, into anti-SJW and anti-feminist strawman makers.
And looking back, reinterpreting the Harry Potter series I loved so much feels, well, pertinent to how I slipped into that dark era of my thinking. Hermione trying to change things and help people was portrayed as annoying and high-and-mighty. Hell, the Hufflepuffs were a whole HOUSE of people committed to being accepting of others who are different, and they were portrayed as weak, incompetent, and unlikeable, aside from Cedric, who was the kind of *popular* guy we're taught to mistrust. Rowling's beliefs color her work, and in turn, color the way children who grew up admiring her work and wanting to be like her characters, see the world.
A lot of us have fallen into the alt right pipeline unfortunately. In the late 2000s and early 2010s, it seemed popular to be anti-SJW. All I knew of the left in those days was that they were loud, annoying and hellbent on taking away my "free speech". I was a lot more edgy back then so I was always being offensive as possible "for the lulz". Very cringe.
I think your point on what we grew up with influencing us is true. It's interesting to see the subtlety of messaging in media such as books have an impact. My journey was a lot less subtle as I grew up with a paranoid conspiracy theorist, diehard Conservative and slight Christian Nationalist father. I've been drifting to the left over the years and it was down to just actually listening to the people I deemed as "loud" and "annoying". Then you realize they are saying a lot of sane shit. A lot more sane than my father thinking Obama was the literal Anti Christ because he is a Muslim in charge of the greatest country in the free world LOL!
Anyway, thanks for your story. Made me think a lot about my journey.
"How DARE you make the gay vampires even GAYER?!"
I'm h o w l i n g.
EDIT: The final Audible ad was absolutely adorable. Your faces!!
that phrase absolutely nailed it! :D
*rowling
TheVoidLord thank you
I hate that the internet makes everything seem sarcastic, because I just want to call you Cool Lit Professor, and I mean it sincerely.
Underrated comment
I read this in a sarcastic tone
Heh
That should totally be a thing
Lit
I believe "death of the author" has to be viewed on a case-by-case-basis.
Stephen King for example would not tell you what his authorial intent was when writing Cujo. He can't, because he was so high on drugs when he wrote the book, that now he can't even remember having written it.
You can't do that with Strangers in a strange land, because Heinlein literally preaches onto the page.
Goethe claims in his letters and notes that something important happens in Faust 2, but seemingly forgot to put any of it in the text.
You have to ask yourself if any of the intent applies to the text, if it doesn't represent it.
You also have a debate about canon.
Tolkien made one of the richest worlds in all of high fantasy. The story of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and the Simarillion could in that case be seen as the text. But then there's the deep canon of "Tolkien mentioned this in a letter to a friend once and that other thing i´when asked by a fan."
If you want to determine death of the author you first need to find a consensus on what the text even is.
Or who the author is when it comes to a collaborative work.
I'm at least happy that Tolkien answered so many fan letters about middle earth seriously. He really expanded his world in a meaningfull way.
Lindsay Ellis is the maiden saint of essay writing. You are in the thoughts and prayers of humanities students everywhere
thewatcher Unlike when I was in college, doing it professionally means a team of people get to do it.
Nothing against Lindsay Ellis, but want to make sure we give the whole team credit. They are all outstanding examples of good research and essay writing!
I once joked about John Green's tendency to just show up at your house then said his name
three times in the bathroom mirror and we had to talk with him about his characters all night,
feed him and give him a lift to the airport the next day. Great guy though.
Great vid. Happy new year Lindsay and everyone else reading this.
I invite the Greens over once in awhile to chat via the mirror invocation. Nice folks. Bit competitive with each other if you get 'em both in one summon.
Lmao what the fuck?
Happy new year!
I can't help but think that "Le mort d'auteur" is a pun on Mallory's "Le Mort D'Arthur." I just can't see anyone with a background in literature being completely able to resist that pun.
THANK YOU!! I was searching for someone who got it, too lol, nice observation lass
It's "la mort de l'auteur" (the death of the author), "Le Morte D'arthur" translates as the death of Arthur. I don't think there's any intended pun because there's no other way to phrase those concepts in French and I don't think Mallory was particularly popular in France during the 1960s. Notably to make a case for a pun I think Barthes would have had to retain Mallory's mangled French grammar.
It's doubly fitting given that Mallory was very far from the vision of heroic nobility associated with Arthur.
My big problem with death of the author is that some people have essentially weaponized this theory. Where, in some respects, the initial theory divorces itself from the author's biases and what they intended to be read into the story, in such way it defends the authors themselves from criticism, and also protects the work from criticism of the author. However, the concept of coding is where the work is analyzed without the author's intent in mind, and then projects any flaws deemed from the text back onto the author to show what you think that the author believes, and the authors cannot defend themselves.
It being weaponized is my issue as well. I do think everyone can have an opinion and feel what they want to feel, but it's weird to me when an author actually does come out and explain something and everyone just says that the author is wrong because it conflicts with their fan theory. If you don't like what the author has to say you should just move on. It honestly feels childish to bury your head in the sand and and make up stuff because they didn't feel the same way you do.
so the zombification of the author?!
Well said. As a writer, it's the harsh phrasing and dismissive attitude that's starting to make me nervous. I am completely okay with people asserting their own interpretation of my work even if it's not what I intended or I don't even like idea in the first place. I gave it to them and what they do with it isn't my business. There's a rising trend, though, of comments and attitudes that feel like an audience is yanking the book from an author, shoving them onto the porch, and slamming the door in their face. Like, hello, that thing you've been obsessing over for months was written by a hardworking human being who is allowed to talk about their own work just like you're allowed to (politely) ignore them. In many ways, Death of Author should be renamed Live And Let Live.
Weaponized is a good word for it. There's a phenomenon where people will dismiss books simply because they disagree with the personal views of the author - even when that's got nothing to do with the story. Orson Scott Card's views on gay people, for example, led to a boycott of books he'd written decades earlier which don't even mention the topic. The author may protest, but is met with a mangled form of the theory: "what you think doesn't matter, we've decided that since you're anti-gay then all your books must be too, so there!".
@@CNash85 There's a difference between 'this guy is kind of an ass to people' and 'this guy thinks a certain group of people don't deserve basic human rights.' That's not some small "disagreement," and if someone outs themselves as a bigot then the defending party and their allies have every right to defend themselves.
But that's not to say a person's art is inherently bad because the artist is bad, it's just that mileage varies on whether a person can separate art from artist enough to enjoy their work. And yes, there are people who can't separate the two very much, if at all, and that's their prerogative. I prefer more of a 'let's look at the work objectively while keeping the creator's bigotry/abuse/misconduct in mind, but it's not my place to tell trans people they should appreciate Harry Potter anyway even though the person who wrote it speaks against them specifically. It's a messy, personal, case by case kinda thing.
Nothing has helped me understand Death of the Author theory quite like living through JK Rowling's current... state.
JK Rowling basically has "Death of the Author" moving on to "Calmly Smothering the AUthor with a Pillow"
Girl, ain't that the truth.
I suddenly got this image of an elderly J. K. being wheeled around a retirement home by a nurse as she points a wand at other residents and shouts triumphantly "Yer a wizard 'Arry! Wingardium Leviosa! Expelliarmus! Dobby is free!"
I enjoy that most of the fandom has moved away from yelling at J.K for her ongoing bull shit to just deciding she immediately got sucked into a black hole post Deathly Hallows release. Cursed Child? What are you talking about???? What weird alternative dimension l bullshit are you mumbling about?
Yubsie 🤣 that is a MOOD
Hadn’t seen fault in our Stars. William Dafoes John Green cosplay is sick
Yeah, definitely sold me on the movie now.
@@johnlee7164 Same
Spider-Man!
You know he's something of an author himself.
Somehow this is becoming more relevant every day in regards to JK Rowling.
As Lindsay says at the very start: the theory is not meant to be used to examine the ethics of watching "The Usual Suspects" while knowing what we now know about Kevin Spacey; thus, trying to use it to justify boycotting "Harry Potter" because of how Rowling feels about trans people is also not going to work. Death of the author is primarily about the author's intent in the process of writing the story, and unless I've missed something, Rowling never touches upon trans people (or anything LGBT really - but see Lindsay's point later on about the paratext of "gay Dumbledore") at all in any of her novels. The author's personal feelings, unconnected with their writing, should not influence how we read the text.
To put it another way: can a racist author write a book from the perspective of a black man? What if that story was 100% upfront and genuine; the author doesn't imply within the text that he believes black people to be inferior. How would we react? I doubt anyone would think there was *no* racist subtext whatsoever, even if it wasn't evident in the story, simply because of the public views of the author. But, taking another scenario, what if the author had no public life whatsoever? Nobody knows he's a racist, and so nobody can read anything into the text other than what is on the page. Does this diminish the quality of the finished product? No, of course not. Both with and without knowledge of the author, the text is the same.
Well would ya look at that.
th-cam.com/video/NViZYL-U8s0/w-d-xo.html
CNash85 I enjoy your sentiment at the end there about the text being the same. It reminds me of the debate surrounding DW Griffith’s Birth of a Nation. In both the film industry and the study of film, Birth of a Nation’s legacy is very controversial due to it being both a piece of racist propaganda and a landmark of modern day filmmaking techniques. Long story short, the film glorifies the confederate south, the Lost Cause, white supremacy and the KKK. The film also was one of the first films to use a three act structure and was made on an epic scale unlike anything made before. The point is, while the film glorifies the institution of racism, it pioneered many techniques that are still used in film to this day. Over time many have tried to separate art from the artist or paint a more flattering picture of the film’s creator, DW Griffith, in order to make both Hollywood’s history and the history of film more clean and appealing. Some justify the film’s content by recalling Griffith’s youth growing up in a reconstructed South. Others try to remove Griffith all together and say the film is a marvel of filmmaking technique. However, the thing that bugs me the most about both arguments is the fact that no matter how you look at it, Birth of A Nation is a piece of racist propaganda. DW Griffith may have been born in a pro-White supremacy family and south but he isn’t a victim in any way. He didn’t have to glorify the KKK in the first place. Similarly, even if you praise the film for its innovations, you can’t forget the fact that it is racist, white supremacist propaganda. The text, or in this case, the film, is the same regardless of how you look at it.
a true understatement
So much, Lindsay has to make a second video saying "don't put this in my tab!"
"There are an awful lot of young people out there, who rush into death of the author without really understanding its intended purpose"
This was the smartest joke ever made on TH-cam
What joke?
*thinks for a little bit*
Oh - OHH! Ah.
@@littlefieryone2825 Dont worry, I had to reread and think about it again, too :D
The irony was signing the original essay
@@littlefieryone2825 I dont want to think can you explain it to me
someone explain the joke like I am 5 yrs old please
wow Lindsay I can't believe you wrote The Fault in our Stars and I had no idea
mothcub she’s a ghost writer
Wait what? When did she say that?
@@fission035 John Green says it at the end of the video.
@Damico881 It's at the end after the trailer around 30:05
Yeah.. I'm pretty sure that was a joke. :)
Jokes on you guys, J.D. Salinger was actually the creator of the game show Hollywoo Stars and Celebrities, What Do They Know? Do They Know Things? Let's Find Out.
Came here for this
This comment made my day 😂😂
I keep thinking of Salinger as a cartoon caricature of the man.
i love you for this reference.
back in the 90s i was in a very famous TV show.
While I'm sad this show is cancelled, it did what it set out to do. What did Hollywoo stars and celebrities know? Did they know things? We found out!
This has become an interesting issue in music interviews. The entire interview becomes about the author's intent and background to the song or piece of music and nothing about the music itself. I think it partly has to do with a lack of knowledge about the languages of music in the general public, and a need for every work of art to be autobiographical.
"my good friend derrida" - love how you sneak a contrapoints reference into all of your videos now. great mouth feel.
When I first read "The fault in our stars", I thought that, for Hazel, wanting to know a proper conclusion to her favourite book, was similar to how she felt about her life ending shortly because of her condition.
Ah that's interesting
I thought that was the author’s intent all along
I felt the same. I think she used the story to try to answer her own uncertainties.
@@anaisabelmunguia7285 It makes sense for a person like her. And honestly, I've come across many people interacting with media they enjoy in a similar way. As if they hold some answer to a burning question they have about life, even though their creators have other things in mind and as simple people don't always know everything.
I feel like it relates a bit to the idea of afterlife as well
When it comes to reading art, I'm split. On the one hand, I feel that the nature of artistic works is a direct personal message toward the audience, and to separate the author from the work is to dehumanize it. But on the other, I'm not ready to say the audience has no place in making their own interpretations separate from the author's, because that would be denying the full interactive potential art can have.
Why it can't be both? Author laid out the facts and statements about their story. You made your own opinion on these facts and statements. You can have your interpretation, but anything you'll try to do with that will result in your own work of fiction, and will not change the source material, and it's facts, in any way.
VG Myths: can you read a book while separating the author from the text?
@@papersonic9941 Wouldn't that be literary myths?
schrödingers author: authorial intent matters to the degree I agree with it xD
You here too?
I've never read any books with the author in mind so I have no idea where John Green is coming from actually. I tend not to even know very much about my favorite authors. Their backgrounds are not something I seek to know. I just want to read and enjoy their works.
This was exactly what I was going to say. I have read, probably 90% or more of my books without knowing a single thing about the author, their intent, or even if they were even *really* dead or not, let alone thought a whit about it while reading the book.
Have you never attended an American public school?
@@cthulhutheendless1587 No. Because I grew up in Canada.
what a weird question is that lol
Same lol
Just a note on J.K. Rowling's fanfiction stance - I remember back in the day there has been some friction between JK and fans in other countries than UK and US (I specifically remember Poland but there might be others) - apparently she didn't want to approve of an idea of any fanfiction in languages she couldn't monitor/control, even if they came from official fanfiction clubs. How much of that 'allowing' for fan fiction only applied for PR purposes English-speaking countries, I don't know, but the way she behaves nowadays proves that maybe authors shouldn't be allowed access their official social media. They can start anonymous accounts and build their separate following without revealing their identity. It would be so much easier for everyone.
"maybe authors shouldn't be allowed access their official social media" How do you propose this to be put into action exactly ? You can't have a "JK Rowling Twitter account" without the actual person having the rights to control it, after all yes she's got an author's brand but she isn't a company. It would be like censoring this person, denying them access to their own identity. If their behaviour is a problem, then they can get locked out of the social media in question like any other person, like what they did with Trump. If they are not kicked out, then it's the moderation team who's not doing their job.
I remember when I did a book report on the book The Giver and had to do background research on the author Lois Lowry. Turns out she was inspired to write the book after her father had gotten Alzheimer’s and forgot about her dead sister who died of cancer in her 20s. This hit me harder than the book itself.
There’s a sick sad part of me that as soon as I got notification and read the Title I JUST KNEW JK WAS COMING. 😂😂
SAME! :)
I think we all thought the same thing 😂
But were you expecting "him" to show up?
We need to talk about the hippogriff if in the room 🤣
Yup!
A lot of Harry Potter fans feeling this today.
And today
And always really.
Yeah... pretty much. Ugh.
And today...
I’m not a Harry Potter fan but I agree. The feeling must be getting harder every day by day.
An observation about the slow transition made in this video that begins at about 26:00; Throughout the video, Lindsay uses the 90s educational VHS style as a framing device to offer information about the history and context surrounding many of the literary theories she discusses in the video. While it's a funny throwback, it also has a purpose. It lends the viewer a visual cue that informs them when she will be imparting this knowledge and, in doing so, places her in a position of authority within the video she's created. One of the major ideas discussed in this video is that of whether an author is god, or merely the messenger. In her closing statements, she offers an interpretation of The Fault in Our Stars using the 90s VHS style, implying that this is THE interpretation of the book. However, as she goes on, the video transitions from that style to a more personal style as she closes, “but that’s just my reading”. This is only one interpretation of the book.
The author is dead. Long live the author.
I just noticed the gentle transition at 27 minutes from the 90's instructional bit to the normal style. I'm not sure what it communicates, though...
...do I ask the author, or...?
"Author is dead" is just post-modern, relativistic bullsh*t. The author's intent should ALWAYS dominate every other intent, even if his/her intent is inferior to the fan's intent. Societies embrace of "Death of the Author" can be traced back to a bratty culture in which everyone wants their own worldview affirmed in everything they look at.
P.S. I am using the video makers definition of Death of the Author.
Joseph Neira did... did you watch the video?
@@brennens8849 My comment is not in response to the video.
Joseph Neira Then like...what are you doing here?
@@NickTheDM My comment is on the SUBJECT of the video, you dolt. It's not a rebuke of the video. Understand?
You’ve collected all the Greens, pass Go.
Lindsey just needs one more Green to start building houses and soon hotels.
Now eat your Greens!
@@Serpillard eat the rich?
@@141Zero I think she can do better for meals, they're too charming to nom.
One year later and the You-Know-Who section is a whole lot more relevant. Yikes.
And now even more lol. I guess we’re at the beginning of Half Blood Prince now, You-Know-Who is all the way out
Honey you've got a big storm coming
Annnndddd it keeps going...
As of 7/9/2020 it's pushing on and on...
7/28/2021 still going on...
Am I the only person that reads books and doesn't know anything at all about the author??
Or even think about them in any way other than wondering when the next book will come out???
I am The Exact opposite. I have to know EVERYTHING about The Author.
Most books I read don’t have a fandom and I get neither a fandom interpretation or the author’s. Except maybe the author’s note, which I treasure.
@@MrParkerman6 I can relate. As a Tolkien fan I am accustomed to obscure private correspondences being a normal part of textual analysis so anytime I hear about Death of the Author it feels like such a foreign notion to the way in which I engage with a text. Death of the Author seems dehumanizing in a way.
You talking about the controversies around TFIOS and then john green is RIGHT THERE is the PLOT TWIST OF THE CENTURY
It made me laugh pretty loudly, honestly.
"my good friend Derrida" i see you with that contrapoints reference
Cross-over...?
Holy shit please!
I cackled so hard!
@Giovanna Andrade "Why I Quit Academia," of memory serves.
I remember loving Secret Garden as a kid, read it over and over. There were religious references for sure, but it’s also a story of rural England in the 1800s, so i knew Christianity touched every aspect of people’s lives and just took it in stride. But the way the kids just observed nature and played in their little world was pure experiences, and reminded me of growing up. Then I found out what Christian Scientists were, and the few book lines I always had looked sideways at took on new meaning. I can’t read that book the way I used to, and I miss that
I ruined Charlie and the chocolate factory for my teacher by writing an essay looking at the book through a post-colonial perspective.
Oh boy did I ruin the Oompa Loompas for her. Basically saying that Wonka is an imperialistic slave owner masquerading as an emtrepeneur. Oh and he murdered an oompa loompa in the book. Gave him a fizzy lifting drink and he floated into the atmosphere and was never seen again.
And he and Charlie laugh about it victim blaming the oompa loompa.
I got an A for that essay and ruined her childhood memories. It was very satisfying.
@orly2me I don't want to know how specifically the text was ruined but rather what the historical context was
This reminded me of a Hey Arnold episode, when he looks for info about his favorite author and it turned out to be a really grumpy middle aged lady who lived by herself on an island.🤔
I've heard a lot of people talking about this subject recently, but I never understood what they were on about. There has been a lot of smiling and nodding! Lol Thanks for making this, Lindsay!
P. D. Morrin 2
Talking about Harry Potter and dumbledores sexuality made me think of a very potter musical (and the sequel and senior year). I guess that is the ultimate form of paratext and fan culture
That sounds like a bootleg novel: "Harry Potter and Dumbledore's Sexuality."
I mean if you look at it from that lens, AVPM led directly into the later seasons of Glee, which led into Ryan Murphy having a long career with various TV shows feeding into this endless feedback loop of paratext that leads all the way back to Harry Potter
@@benjaminzeledon7626 If you want to make it even weirder, and more meta, you could argue that AVPM led directly to Darren Criss winning an Emmy as well as every other aspect of his career. Which Darren himself has often copped to when asked about it interviews.
"the Hippogriff in the room" I'm screaming😭💘
I can see Dumbledore as gay it's one of the few things she says I thought "yeah that makes sense"
I've been thinking that she's just been trying to see how ridiculous of a thing she can come up with that her fans would accept as canon because they were hungry for any HP content. I think most people drew the line at 'before toilets wizards just shit themselves'.
But when she said the golden snitch was actually a poly demisexual otherkin, thats when she crossed a line with me tbqh.
@@thejason755 Please tell me that she didn´t actually say that and it was just the most ridiculus example you could think of?
@@weaverofbrokenthreads that was the most ridiculous example i could think of.
Film mom feeding us with knowledge just before the end of the year? Everyone say thank you Lindsay!
mosaicredhearts Film mom is best mom
thank you lindsay!
Thank you Lindsay!!
Thank you, Lindsay!
Thanks
thumbs up if you pooped on the floor and then magic'd it away while watching this
I get that reference!
Really makes you think that Pottermore (and I guess therefore JK Rowling) declared that as canon approximately 5 days after this video came out... hmmmmmm
Oh my gOD 🤣
Not even on the floor, it is supposed be them having shat in their PANTS in the past like... please someone tell me it is all false and is from The Onion article or something.
@@oof-rr5nf I mean there is solace in the fact that in the book they state that they used chamber pots.
Slowly removing the VHS audiovisual effect starting at 26:00 was an inspired move. 10/10
A young film student once asked Director John Ford what he was hoping to achieve with his first film. His response? He took a pull off his cigar and said....."A check."
I am so envious that you got to interview both Green brothers.
What video did she interview Hank?
@@crystalar99 In her video titled: "TH-cam: Manufacturing Authenticity (for fun and profit)"
Time Kick
Calling the Shadowhunters world Harry potter fanfiction is possibly fatal shade and I admire your courage.
I love your channel btw
I think a big problem with "author's intent" is that often, the author does things they don't actually _mean_ to do. Authors can create themes, metaphors, or implications accidentally.
Really, I don't think you can fully and completely divorce an author from their work; there will always be a gray area, because a piece of the author, their views, perspectives, lives, etc, will be found in that work. It's not to say that someone who writes a serial killer horror is secretly a serial killer, but you can likely find reflections on how the author sees parts of the world. Writing is a combination of imagination and the application of experience, it's why plenty of authors write things which are familiar to them, or even if they write a fantastic world with made up rules, some of those rules might mimic something familiar, even if the familiarity is only to create a better sense of empathy in the audience.
I don't think we should have a strict 100% one or the other on "death of the author" or "authorial intent." I think both should be taken into account when reading a work, especially if they provide a better context of the work itself. Who someone is will have an impact on how they write, not as a negative or positive thing: just as a fact, and using that context can change the view of the work. (I'm not exactly sure if what I mean is coherent here, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
i think if you know or notice something about an author or their work you can include it in building your idea of the book but i think seeking out more information about the book/author specifically to shape your opinion of it is going too far.
You're right, like certain authors were just a broken mess of a person, of course that impacts their writing. I don't think that reading H.P. Lovecraft or Franz Kafka, for example, would be the same or would even be as valued, if you didn't unterstand why these people wrote those weird stories, where their strange thoughts were coming from.
In reader-response theory that sort of trace of the author is called an implied author, but it's not the actual person that is the author as much as it's a version of them constructed by the reader. So what matters is the reader's impression of the intent of the author, not the actual authorial intent.
100% agree.
@Leniad What creo described in the second paragraph would be the implied author. But I suppose we're kind of talking about both things because the video conflates them, or at least the implied author seems to be the thing John Green is talking about, with the author as a sort of "character" or ghost in the story.
When I was a child, I never considered the author when reading books. I usually didn't know anything about them and I didn't care and often didn't know their names. Yes, the names were on the covers, I might have read them at some point, but if you asked me about the names of the authors of some of my favourite book series, I wouldn't have known. Or cared. And I actually never thought about authors when reading books, either. I never saw an author in the story they had written. If my 11 year old self had heard John and Lindsay talking about seeing the author in a book and how you can't seperate the author from their work, I would not have had a clue what they were talking about. ...probably because I couldn't speak english at age 11, but I don't think I would have understood more, if language wasn't an issue.
I just read books and looked at them as just that. Finished works that somehow existed. I never thought about how they came into existence. I mean, I obviously knew someone wrote them at some point, but I neither cared nor really thought about that. Nowadays, I sometimes still have that type of reading experience, but often not anymore. That said, I still don't understand the other extreme. I have never experienced it. I've never been dying to know an author's thoughts about something in their books. Or even been particularly interested, without the "dying for it" part. I don't get it. I don't get why someone would travel across the world to ask their favourite author about something happening outside of the story. There are instances, where I could find an author's thoughts on something like that interesting, but not to a degree where I would go significantly out of my way or spend money or something to get it. Or even just specifically went looking for it at all. I don't know. Maybe I'm weird. I don't understand you. If I was an author I would probably be incredibly annoyed by people trying to psychoanalyze me through my work.
Thank you for rocking the VHS 📼 look. Brought back memories
I'm very much in the "middle path" camp that shies away from either absolute of author=dead vs author="god" and enjoy the layers that come from exploring both my thoughts on the text alone and the greater context surrounding the work (including, of course, the author). Fabulous vid! Loved the 80s VHS motif, sooo much a part of my youth. :P
Finally, a middle ground camp! I was worried I wouldn't find someone who agreed with me. Absolutism in and of itself is poison to learning in my opinion, which I admit is itself an absolute.
@@tiacat11 Well, if you describe it at poison, it doesn't have to be an absolute, after all, the dose makes the poison.
I personally think that death of the author and authorial intent/being god cater to two very different interests. Author=death is great for exploring themes and a personal relationship with the text. If one's more interested in the concept of world building, authorial intent and the godhood of the author become much more valuable.
If we look at star wars, the original trilogy was strongly thematic and the prequels were almost entirely world building. The lord of the rings mixes world building with tolkiens chapter long expositions with a Story that I feel is much more about it's themes. So it lends itself well to ask the author questions about what happens outside the pages, many of them probably answered in the silmarillion, but there's also an awful lot of space to talk about how one relates to the actual text.
I have a *soft preference* for "authorial intent" (called also "the word of God" - I kind of dislike the absolutist and pretentious sound of that).
But I always love to here a critic analysing the work in two different ways. Which they ushally do. Most reviews are actually not on one absolute.
I also form double reviews in my head.
It's just more interesting.
And I worried New Year's Eve would be boring this year... Silly me ^^
it's almost midnight in France, so HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!
Happy new year to you ^^
bonne année eh
Happy new year! Don't miss hbomb's premier after you watched this
Happy New Year! 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉👋
@@detimeditom Thank you for reminding me!
I had so many books ruined for me in high school by English teachers insisting that we analyse them, with the whole 'but what did the author *mean* by that' thing, that I rebelled by refusing to analyse most books for ever more. I try to just read the story as a window into another world, and enjoy it as entertainment. I'm not always successful in this, but I do try to ignore any concept of meta text. Thanks for this video, though. It made me think more about these things. :)
yea teachers just want students to give them the answer THEY want
@Sandi Hubbard What the author meant IS, important... but it can be discerned from the text around it. No need for the author to clarify. And if no clarification is available in the text it's a matter of interpretation, and once the author is done with a text, their interpretation is hardly any different from any other.
A bad teacher wants students to give them the answer they want. A good teacher wants students to give an answer that shows a critical analysis of the text, whether the students interpretation is the same as the teachers or not.
I'm sorry your experience with books has been hurt by bad teachers. I do recommend though that you try deeper literary analysis again, without a teacher over your shoulder telling you what to think. My experience with books has been greatly enriched by it since I finally had a good teacher teach me to do it in college.
If you decide to take my advice, and haven't read it yet, I recommend "1984" by George Orwell as an entry point to literary analysis, as the story is absolutely gripping on its own whether you care about the meta-text or not, but the meta-text is so overt as to be impossible to miss. If you're willing to read online there's a link to a free legal copy (as the book is old enough that it's now in creative commons) below. There is a link to download epub/kindleazw3 ebook versions on the page.
www.openrightslibrary.com/nineteen-eighty-four-1984-ebook/
But don't think I'm trying to tell you how to read. If you decide you don't want to look at the deeper meta-text, and get more enjoyment out of surface level analysis, that's perfectly legitimate, there's no wrong way to enjoy a book, unlike what bad teachers will tell you. I just think if you do take my advice, you might be able to get even more enjoyment out of books than you do now.
(And I recommend you read 1984 regardless of if you decide to try to use it as an entry into giving literary analysis another shot. It's a great book even just as a sci-fi story without trying to think about the subtext.)
I think it was more natural for me, who is from a different country, language, culture, to not look for the author in the text. I would never know who the author was because the cult of personality never reached me. But even then after I read things I would come across the brand of the author in some way and be hooked or disocciated.
Yeah, this really reminds me of Susan Sontag's Against Interpretation Essay:)
Same, I got no joy cutting the text into pieces and looking at it with a magnifying glass… Let me dream and accept others' worlds as they come to me.
That transition into the interview was goddamn beautiful. Lindsay deserves her own show
"what can I say but yikes" is gonna be the next "Thanks, I hate it" on twitter. I feel marketed to
Hey, I'd buy the T-Shirt.
"PARATEXT
It's not just a pair of texts!" is A-level coffee mug material.
quite the portmanteau
MyssBlewm Followed by A-level Death-of-the-graduate-student-by-a-flathead-screwdriver-through-the-eye-socket
This video has aged like fine wine
this video hits different after jk rowlings terf manifesto
I can’t help but wonder how Lindsay’s relationship with John Green affected her outlook on this
yes, especially since she leaves the 16 year olds' sex scene thing hanging
I see what you did there...
Well our opinions are at least partially the result of the information given to us, so it is certainly not beyond the realm of imagination.
If the author is death then she's interviewing a zombie.
@@matiasalderetevelazquez9628 I wouldn't be surprised if the meta layer was the author's intent on this essay and oh god it's starting....
perfect timing because today we learned that before there were bathrooms at hogwarts, wizards just pooped wherever and made it disappear with magic.
she has become george lucas.
George, like or hate the changes he made to the Original Trilogy, at least put his changes *into* the films, rather than just proclaim them from the pulpit of social media.
I tend to ignore much of what JKR has said outside the narratives themselves.
Dumbledore is gay: doesn't matter to the story, it's not mentioned in the books.
Harry and Hermione should've ended up together (in her opinion): doesn't matter, because she wrote the books the way she did and they didn't end up together. And personally I think the books are better the way she did write them in this regard.
My point is, I tend to think JKR's paratexting is in some ways worse than Lucas's relatively minor, mostly aesthetic alterations to the OT.
That was actually on Pottermore over a year ago. They just only tweeted it last week.
She never said that Harry and Hermione should have ended up together. I read the actual interview she did with Emma Watson, and she said that she thought Harry and Hermione are more similar people so a relationship between them would've been easier at first. Hermione and Ron could butt heads and would have to put more work into their relationship. The whole "Harry and Hermione should've ended up together" was just clickbait titling from news sites that few people read. Though I agree that the paratext she is creating on shouldn't matter to the narratives. I just wanted to clarify that one bit because it's the one paratext everyone gets wrong. @@MadTheDJ
Google made me do it. In large parts I agree with you but the notion of an author not doing their job if we don’t know every single detail is ridiculous. In all types of storytelling you have the key notion that if it isn’t relevant then it doesn’t have a place in the story. Over explaining drags down the story so if you can cut it you do. Tolkien made a story where we know the backstory to every pebble and mountain but he also wrote a story that is notoriously hard to read because of the amount of info that doesn’t technically serve the story he’s telling.
Actually leaving holes that the reader can fill out themselves is advised by most writers because it means that people can fill them out themselves. Heck half the reason why Harry Potter is still relevant is because the fans has has continued to find ways to build up the world. Most of the problems that Harry Potter has today is because JK can’t leave the world and continues to add random shit that doesn’t actually give anything to the story or just straight up doesn’t make sense and only complicates everything.
I feel sorry for the wizard whose life's work culminated in the Make-Shit-Disappear spell.
Here after "Death of the Author 2: Rowling Boogaloo".
Me too
Omg same
Love this! And if I may add: the extreme yearning, mental exercises, and further discussion about what comes next in plot and character that inevitably comes after finishing a book is, in my opinion, one of the best parts of reading.
Well I watched the Fault in Our Stars film without knowing anything about John Green, so I guess the story worked.
Though makes a bit more sense now.
TBH I don’t think I knew who Esther was when I read the book. I barely knew who John Green was, save for that someone I had a crush on liked his books. I personally think the book stands alone just fine.
Yep. I also knew not much other than that he was a popular author, and I think it's a funny and heartfelt story without that context. Oh, and I'd read other books of his, which undoubtedly changed my reading of TFIOS.
Side not it's the novel of Green's that I enjoy the least
I read it completely divorced of context. It was given to me to read by a German friend at 11 when I didn't even know he had a TH-cam or tumblr or anything. I think it was definitely a 'pure' reading, but does that really matter
Same. I just found out about it from a friend who gushed about it. I read it and loved it instantly. Even then, it was a year before I found out about vlogbrothers and Esther Earl day and everything about nerdfighteria.
Same, honestly, quite shocking how exactly true this is lol
Lindsay, i just want to tell you that you made it, I'm watching this video as a part of my english extention class
I really enjoyed this and was super thankful for the subtitles because as someone with auditory issues the muffle on the audio made it impossible to understand for large parts at a time. So thank you very much for the subtitles!
Every time I watch one of your videos, I feel like I spend (at minimum) the next 2-3 days thinking about the topics discussed and questions raised. Nice work as always. 👍
so cool to see you here! awesome!
So glad that Sarah Z got a shoutout. As a fan of both of y'all's channels, it's great to see that you guys are aware of each other.
Comic Drake I was just thinking about that. “Didn’t Sarah Z just do this?”
I’m glad she got credited instead of ignored
Where in the video is she credited
I didn't see a shoutout?
@@jaminelvers7250 it's only in the cited sources in the description apparently
She blatantly copied Sarah's video. A tiny citation in the description is pretty cheap. SMH
Love the training-video format! So creative, since we normally see that in film rather than a broad topic about art as a whole.
"My good friend Derrida"
Ye gods I love how my favorite creators on this platform all reference and stan each other.
Great video Lindsay, I really enjoy your work, and this is no exception.
One thing that annoys me about all this discussion of the death of the author is that in the original essay, the final line is "the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the author."
People don't seem to understand that much of the point of the essay is that it doesn't actually matter what the author's interpretation of a work is because it is entirely within the rights of the reader to interpret the work how they see fit. Barthes is telling critics to forget trying to commit hermeneutics, go ahead and tell us what you think the work was about.
Though, of course, we risk falling into the trap of Everyone is Jesus in Purgatory.
And yet, ignorant morons often dismiss criticism or praise as "reading too much" or Blue Curtains
"People don't seem to understand that much of the point of the essay is that it doesn't actually matter what the author's interpretation of a work is because it is entirely within the rights of the reader to interpret the work"
I don't think anyone who has tackled the essay and understood the central concept is failing to appreciate that the doctrine recommends ignoring or devaluing authorial interpretation. I find that a very strange remark, assuming I'm not misunderstanding your comment, because that is basically exactly what it is saying and what everyone seems to have taken from it.
One thing that annoys me about all this discussion of the death of the author is that in the original essay, the final line is "the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the author."
Really? That's funny, because... I was taught Death of the Author without actually reading the essay, and, once I understood it on my own terms, agreed with it. But preferred to think of it as Birth of the Reader. Because! Meaning is a construct; your interpretation of a text is the meaning it has for you, no less real than the author's intent. It's wonderful that we can enjoy and expand upon reader texts like that. But why should that mean that we shouldn't also try to understand the author's intent? After all, writing is about communication. If never seek beyond your own interpretation, you're not seeing new perspectives and you're not learning. You end up with a world where everyone's knid of stuck in their own heads.
Now, if what you mean by "Death of the Author" is that the author's version is no more valid than any other interpretation, well, that's different.
lindsay's video essays are SO INTERESTING
The best.
This is one of my all time favorite TH-cam artists!
Thank you for all the work you do Lindsay!
Stumbled upon your videos and they are an absolute treat. The editing transition at the end is wonderfully done.
Thank you.
Perhaps one should take the rabbi approach and say "What do you think happens after the book ends?"
Fif Gallag I like your labeling that as the rabbi approach but isn’t that what John green said?
or, the truest rabbi approach: spend thousands of years arguing over the meaning of the text, including producing multiple longer, denser books about various interpretations of the book, and hold book club meetings every Saturday!
'just look at that parking lot!'
Anna K I Mean, aren’t we already doing that with Sherlock Holmes and Harry Potter
or the therapist approach.
“Only a limited literary critic deals in absolutes!”
-Lindsay Ellis, 2018
don't forget siths
I have read, if I were to guess, around 90% or more of the books in my lifetime without knowing a single bit of metatextual information about any of the authors of those books. I read to take in what I get from the book itself, and it is for me alone. I read for my own entertainment or education and could give a flying fig about what any author intends when writing the book. If their intent does not come across 100% when I read the text, well, then they failed in their attempt to communicate clearly, but that will not stop me from receiving the information they DID manage to pass on, unintentional or not.
Or maybe you just didn't understand it. An author shouldnt have to spoon feed you intent like you're reading a book for toddlers. If a poem is about death, and that is how the author intended it, it is about death. It doesn't matter if you don't interpret that way, that is what its about. Your interpretation is objectively wrong even if you relate the story in a different way.
@@millie209 That's a big nope from me, dawg. Unless you are going to sit over the shoulder of every single person who ever reads your work, constantly pointing out, "See, right there, that means this. And right here, that's actually a cleverly hidden metaphor about that", then you are going to have to accept that the person reading/watching/hearing your art is going to have their own opinion on what it 'means', and how it relates to their own experiences. Personally, I like my consumption of all forms of media to be as disconnected from the originator as possible. I usually know their names, possibly a time period it was written in, and that's about it. The rest is up to me. I like it that way, and since I am the one doing the consuming, that is just fine. It is in no way 'wrong' to do so. With one notable style of media. Factual (Not opinion) documentaries or news. Not 'we took some liberties for drama', but actual, literal informational presentation. You can get that wrong, if you decide that your own opinion is more true than the actual facts of the matter. But any type of artistic or fictional work, across time and space, is mine to do with as I wish, once the creator has birthed their baby and sent it on it's way.
The infovid portions are done so well; the aesthetic is absolutely perfect!