Intention and Critique

[dukealien]

The arguments they make are persuasive. Outside of these forums, intent is a sunk cost. So, they are correct, it does not matter.

However, if you are offering critique of a poem, then, intent does matter to a certain extent because the author has a certain message they desire to convey and part of critique is commenting on how a well a message or the message is conveyed. You are critiquing for the author. I think that changes things a little bit.

Understanding the authors intent does not add or detract from literature's merit, but it can help you offer a more relevant critique.

+2

In other words, the New Criticism deals only with completed (even petrified) works while critique deals with works in progress.  So even the least inisde-baseball form of critique, "my interpretation," is of value to the still-living and -editing author who can compare interpretation with actual (or remembered ) intent and modify the work accordingly.

Which makes another contrast with the New Critic:  unlike the writer of critiques, he is not trying to help anyone.  In fact, since his literary ideology empties the petrified work of meaning, his only course is to pour his own ideological meaning into it; otherwise, he has nothing to say beyond description.  The writer of critiques may also have an agenda, but the work's author is free to treat it as error or misunderstanding.