There are several areas on which I wanted to comment.

1. The "culture wars" aspect

If a novel has a character named "Cohen" who is otherwise not identified as a Jew, is the a positive (or negative) portrayal of Jewish people? We could say that. And it wouldn't be without merit. The Dumbledore case would appear to be even more remote but one wonders whether this was an attempt to eat one's cake but still have it, to get the credit for positive portrayals while avoiding flack from the other side for putting homosexuality into children's literature. Perhaps hoping as well that parents who approved of such things could share the information with their children while parents who did not would not. That hope would be naive but at the very least her remarks can be counted as a nod toward "positive portrayals of homosexuals" while avoiding "writing propaganda for the homosexual agenda" (or even "writing homosexual pornography") for children from any but the most extreme critics.

In that context, one could either take this as a revelation of a subtext concealed by the exigencies of current cultural and cultural attitudes or as cowardly and duplicitous.

(Reviewing the context of the author's remarks, I am now less inclined to ascribe to her any such scheming, though I wouldn't discard the possibility.)

Is "Puff the Magic Dragon" a drug song? The authors and most famous performers deny it. Is "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"? McCartney takes it as obvious that it was. But is it any less "obvious" that Lewis Carroll was writing about drugs? (He was not.)

2. The nature of these books as mass media

When we are dealing with a series, with film adaptations, with authorized ("canon") and unauthorized ("fanon") spin-offs - in short, with a "franchise", as such things are now called - authorial remarks ex cathedra have potentially a different significance. An obvious case: they may influence the actors and directors of film adaptations not yet released. So remarks that might be deemed irrelevant to books already published might yet have relevance to the understanding of the films.

(Since reviewing some information, I discovered that she claims prior to her public comments to have corrected a scriptwriter for one of the films, adding a margin note that Dumbledore is gay.)

3. Is N homosexual?

Where N is a living, breathing, contemporary human being, this question may be subject to debate. Even to the individual herself, as with Meredith Baxter's recent "coming out". And members of this forum needn't think long to recall historical figures whose sexual orientation might be subject to debate. But in any case, there's a temptation to say that whether a fictional character is homosexual depends on whether their actions as portrayed within the confines of of the fictional work would meet our criteria for identifying them as such were they an actual person and were we to know of those actions. But of course, narrators tell us all sorts of things rather than showing them and we recognize that authors use reliable and unreliable narrators.

4. What is not said

Do a character's actions make more sense on the basis of ascribing to them this or that motivation than they would otherwise make? Is this a legitimate basis for counting something as "in the text"? Certainly, our experience of much fiction would be deeply impoverished if we accepted only those characterizations that are explicit!

And if it is but other motives might serve just as well, then we could still dispute the reading. But then we are simply favoring an interpretation contrary to the author's. Which is not to say that we're doing anything wrong.

Authors of course often have detailed notes on characters including all sorts of biographical information that never sees print. This information guides their writing even if it isn't so much as suggested in the text. But it isn't implausible that through such a process that traces that were not deliberately left might still remain to be discovered. And how well can we really separate what we can find in the text alone from what we know the author has said?

A fancy of mine. Sherlock Holmes had Attention Deficit Disorder. This would explain a brilliant man never completing college as well as an abuse of stimulants that stops when he has a case that ignites his passion. And other eccentricities. Of course, such a diagnosis could not possibly have entered Conan Doyle's mind (for obvious reasons) though some of the behavior is textbook. Could he have known someone whose behavior would now be diagnosed that way and based Holmes on him? Joseph Bell, the acknowledged inspiration for many aspects of Holmes, does not fit. But that's because he did not share many of Holmes' eccentricities. Perhaps some unknown figure in Conan Doyle's life...

Still, as I said: a fancy.

Taking a narrower approach to a series or to a "franchise", one might treat a single book as the basis for one's reading, e.g. rejecting sequels. Is this "legitimate"? What sort of question is that? One might also take a chapter or even a sentence out of context for examination.

Obviously, it is not what is normally done. But not even the one doing it would dispute that.

(We could also consider mottos, dedications, prefaces, and so forth. Part of the text?

Does it reflect the author's intentions? Probably not. (Though perhaps disregarding the sequels might reflect what the author's intentions had once been.)

Is the result interesting, insightful, or otherwise worthwhile?

What other basis might we have for judging the "legitimacy" of a procedure?

We can surely say, "It isn't explicitly stated in the text." But once we attempt to add, "Therefore..." we are on the verge of a misunderstanding.

JPDeMouy

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"... a couple of reactions (not quite sure what you are looking for)"

I didn't have any specific expectations. Responding as you deem appropriate to however the piece strikes you is helpful to my getting a sense of how I communicated and can spur further discussion. And you did that. Thanks.

I responded to the matter of Dumbledore in a separate post. It's an interesting topic in its own right but I want to separate it for a few reasons:

a. Whether a work depicts so-and-so and whether a work depicts so-and-so as being thus-and-such are distinct questions (though part 2 will touch a bit on the second question in relation to pictures but... well, you'll see).

b. The whole idea that various activities and artifacts should be grouped together as "the fine arts" and that attempting to make generalizations about the whole group is a fruitful way to proceed is one I find suspect. Not that comparison and contrast, noting similarities and differences do not have a place, but I am hesitant to pursue such a broad approach while examining differences between different kinds of pictures.

c. If we were to focus on the question of whether a work depicts so-and-so while admitting works of fiction, a better example would be the allegory or roman a clef, though the analogies break down quickly here too. Other analogies arise for the biographical or autobiographical novel, the historical novel, and other forms of non-fiction novel. But if the character is entirely fictional (not a living person, an historical figure, or a figure of religion, myth, or folklore) and entirely the author's creation (as opposed to, e.g. modern authors writing Sherlock Holmes stories), then how can the question of the creator's misidentification or misdescription even arise? (Sloppy or inconsistent characterization over the course of a work or series of works is another matter.)

d. Talk of "textualism", the applicability of "adherence to the text" to discussions of pictures, is problematic in a number of ways. Is a label fixed to the back of a painting, even if it was shown to have been placed by the painter, part of "the text"? It certainly isn't typical to allow museum goers to inspect such things and their appreciation isn't considered deprived for that. But then even titles are not typically part of the "text". It is standard in art historical scholarship to rely upon documentary evidence, on the artist's testimony and correspondence, on contracts, on prevenances, and so forth, in determining the subject of a painting. What the museum docent has to tell us what the pamphlet accompanying a museum show has to tell us are ubiquitous in art appreciation. And art books are seldom without extensive text. (But note: the title of a painting is often not one the painter gave it.)

Now, regarding the rest of your remarks...

I'm not certain where your finding "confusion" in my comparing of two different cases and keeping them quite distinct, attending to differences between them. Perhaps you could elaborate on what I actually wrote that struck you as confused?

As for the remarks about "affect" and "declaration", I take it that you are distinguishing between the deference given to artists and whether any individual has authority over the content of their work. Or something like that. You seem to be saying (and it is not at all clear to me, so please correct me if I've misunderstood) that:

1. We are taught to respect certain artists and the works of certain artists in the course of learning to appreciate art.

(Why you call this "affect" eludes me. Is it to suggest that learning art appreciation is learning to make the right faces and gestures when viewing art? And "bowing"? This all confuses me a bit but point (1.) above is what I took from those remarks.)

2. We defer to artists with regard to the content of their works, at least to a degree and at least to the extent that they are deemed "great".

3. either:
a. (2.) is explained by (1.),

(That would be a theory, by the way.)

b. (2.) is in part constitutive of (1.)

4. Such deference as (2.) is not the power of the artist to say what her work means or what it depicts but rather our reluctance to criticize a great artist and this only to the extent that the question is relevant to the aesthetic criteria for judging the work.

(Your phrase "criteria for enjoyment" is... unfortunate. We may or may not enjoy a work more for having judged it a worthy work but the criteria do not determine whether we will enjoy it (as if the criteria were a psychological theory) nor whether we ought to (which would be moralistic and priggish). if someone felt the need to apply criteria to determine whether they enjoyed a work, that would indicate that they did not enjoy it. And it might suggest an inability to have an authentic aesthetic experience. I suppose if one say enjoyment entirely in terms of "bowing" appropriately and showing the right "affect", that wouldn't be a problem. I'm having trouble not reading you that way but part of me is thinking, "That can't be what he's saying!")

A few observations:

Appreciation, evaluation, and interpretation are different, albeit overlapping actvities. For example, an historian may be concerned to study the subject matter characteristic of the painting in a particular era without having any concern whatsoever with the aesthetic merit of the work and without enjoying it at all.

Furthermore, aestheticism is anachronistic when applied to works for different periods, different cultures. It also doesn't apply to a great many uses of pictorial images in our own time. That doesn't mean that we cannot approach such works in that way but it would be a grave mistake to treat such an approach as a guide to meaning in pictures generally.

I made no claim that artists have some power over the interpretation of their works. On the contrary, I believe an examination of the case of the children's illustrator (also an intermediate case between "great art" and a child's drawing) and the ambiguous drawing would show that i resisted precisely that temptation.

The greatness of the artist is beside the point when it comes to the artist's intentions. Sincere avowals are (defeasible) criteria for ascribing intention regardless of who makes the sincere avowal.

Now, an artist says, "I had meant for this to be a depiction of X" A viewer says, "I had take this to be a depiction of Y." What do we say in this case? What do we need to say? There's no disagreement so far. Only if we insist on saying, "Yes but is it really a depiction of X, Y, or something else?" is there a problem. And then do we say contentious things like, "What the painting really depicts is what the artist intended"? We could say that, but it amounts to nothing more than a proposal for how we speak of depictions. Some will follow it, others not. But what else might we mean by, "really a depiction of..."?

Equally contentious, "What the artist has to say is irrelevant." It is relevant to those who deem it relevant, irrelevant to those who do not. But saying that is neither contentious nor particularly illuminating.

Our historian may be concerned with what the painter intended. He may be concerned with how the painter's contemporaries received the work. Or he may be concerned with how later generations, perhaps in another culture received the work. What is "relevant" all depend on one's concerns.

And if one's concern is with the artist's use of iconographic and private symbolism to convey a distinct personal worldview (which might be deemed "aesthetic" in contrast to the historian's concerns), then the artist's intentions would be deemed quite relevant.

(I am resisting again the temptation to explain some of the defects in Beethoven's Symphony no. 5, some of which I imagine he might have acknowledged by the time of his Ninth and of the final Quartets. I would say that someone who understands these defects (or at least why they might be deemed such) and who understands how these defects might have emerged in the context of his experiements with cyclic motives may have a far deeper appreciation of Beethoven than one who simply revere the work. Acknowledging the caveats concerning such claims, I would say here that "bowing" is "irrelevant".)

As for the "power" to say, "I don't take the Potter stories that way," we needn't have any prior experience with a genre to take a story one way or another. Our reception may be more or less insightful or interesting because of that but clearly we can take a story one way or another and we can communicate that. I don't see why we'd call this "power". Unless you mean that our taking the story this way or that is just as "legitimate" as what the author has to say. (Or something of the sort.)

What is "legitimacy"? That a reading deserves to be aired and merits consideration? I could at least imagine Political Correctness playing a role in whether certain readings of Dumbledore's sexual orientation were published or discussed but setting that aside (since a hypothetical someone who was so censorious wouldn't be persuaded by philosophical discussions of interpretation anyway!), the bar for a reading to be aired is pretty low. For it to reach a wide audience, it would need to be interesting but I don't think you're defending the claim that reading Dumbledore as heterosexual is just as interesting.

Does the reading "merit consideration"? Consideration for what? Being a more or less plausible reading? "Plausible" how? Plausible as an account of what the author intended? That can't be if we're treating the author's intentions as irrelevant?

Plausible as an interpretation of the characters' personalities and motives that is consistent with what has been established in this fictional universe? Okay. And then the familiarity with the genre would be a relevant consideration.

But then the same sorts of issues would be equally relevant to assessing a reading of works by Goethe or Shakespeare (who presumably are candidates for "bowing"), so the "genius" of the artist is not relevant here.

With regard to "play"...

A child completing a classroom assignment is not "playing": she is engaged in schoolwork.

Being the work of a child engaged in play or schoolwork does not preclude being a candidate for aesthetic appreciation. Consider the study of children's drawings by the artist Paul Klee. Or the Art Brut movement.

Also, consider what Friedrich Schiller had to say about the relationship between play and aesthetics.

The child cannot intend her work to be appreciated in the way that an adult artist might? Agreed. But then, we're bringing intention into it, aren't we?

But most important, the point I am making - or a similar point - could be made without bringing the issue of children or a contrast between play and art into it. Suppose an artist becomes fascinated with the design of Buddhist art in Southeast Asia. And suppose he creates works inspired by his exposure to such art but has not done so indepth a study into the iconography as would enable him to recognize and depict various Bodhisattvas, Buddhas, Arahants, and so forth as a native artist might. Under these circumstances, the same sort of indeterminacy could arise as to whether he had depicted this figure or that or whether he had represented a figure incorrectly, failed to represent that figure, or represented another figure. The ambiguity or indeterminacy is a matter of the artist's competence in the use of certain names, his knowledge of various stories and traditions, and his acquaintance with various conventions, not a matter of his age or whether he was engaged in " ;play" rather than art.

"... just off the top of my head, J!"

I appreciate it. And as much as I have been critical, your remarks have been helpful to me. Thanks.

JPDeMouy

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Regarding the exchange between SW and JRS regarding Springsteen I had a few comments.

I've already hammered on why "criteria for enjoyment" is an unfortunate _expression_. Here it is unfortunate for a different reason. It would be more clear to say simply that many people do enjoy songs for their repetitive choruses and so forth. "Some may say" is then quite unncessary because it's quite obvious to anyone who has ever discussed music with people who approach it from various perspectives. But the suggestion that there are different "criteria for enjoyment" appropriate to popular music is misleading. And people certainly do not enjoy the music based on the criterion of the "feeling it imparts to the lowest-common denominator" but rather they enjoy the music and perhaps their enjoyment reflects the fact that the music does have such mass appeal. Certainly different evaluative criteria are applied by fans of different sorts of music. And it would not be unreasonable to say that one ought to apply criteria appropriate to the style in question, criteria that the musicians themselves or their devoted fans would apply, if one wished to understand a musical culture. In so doing, one might come to enjoy the music (if one did not already) or to enjoy some songs more and other songs less as one developed greater discernment around that style but this is not to say that one enjoyed it because it fit the criteria. (If the criteria were a psychological theory concerning what was enjoyable, then learning the criteria would be irrelevant: the criteria would be relevant to people trying to write hit records but they would not be criteria listeners would need to apply or even understand in order to enjoy the music.)

Is the song patriotic? If it is, it is a bittersweet patriotism or perhaps a challenge to America to live up to its promise and its promises. It is certainly not a jingoistic anthem, not a celebration of America. And this is clear from the lyrics themselves, quite apart from anything Springsteen may have said outside of those lyrics. To interpret it as a song celebrating America is not to understand it differently but simply not to understand.

Whether someone could enjoy the song while having no understanding of its meaning is another matter. Clearly, some people have enjoyed it. Should we say they are wrong to do so? They are wrong when they offer interpretations of it that are patently incorrect but that may not make their enjoyment any less. And we might consider them to be lacking in seriousness or suppose that their enjoyment is in some sense inferior to that of someone who'd given more thought to the matter. But then, someone who had given some thought to the matter might still not have enjoyed it at all either.

Musical cultures and the criteria of evalution (not criteria of enjoyment) may be a matter of the sorts of things fans say in discussion, things written in the music press, things musicians say about their own and one another's work, and so forth, but the music itself (and comparison of different pieces of music) often provides a clue: to assess Dylan's songs by their rhythmic, melodic, or harmonic invention would leave one without much to say. To assess James Brown's song by their lyrics, likewise. But Dylan's lyrics or James Brown's use of syncopation, polyrhythm, progressive tonal harmony in a modal or polymodal context, and so forth, would both give us a great deal to consider. (And Brown is no less a genius and his serious admirers no less "real" in their musical appreciation for the relatively minor role that lyrics play.)

On the matter of elitism. If someone were to claim that people who, e.g. understand the very different rules of counterpoint in Palestrina and Bach, understand the distinct musical and dramatic interest of roles performed by the lyric baritone despite those arias seldom being among the most beloved in opera, or recognize where Alban Berg departs from strict adherence to tone row technique in his compositions (and these aren't always the same people anyway), are among the "real" circles with regard to music appreciation, I would find that rather pointless. And to claim that for those who listen to Dylan would strike me as downright silly. We simply do not live in a society where enough people listen to music seriously, where there is consensus among those who do, or where traditions and institutions encourage a particular musical culture, so the notion of an elite makes no sense. People who listen to classical music on public radio and see going to the ballet as something more than an opportunity to get some use out of their tuxedo are not "elite", they're eccentric. And their enjoyment and the seriousness of the judgments are in no way diminished by acknowledging that fact. But elitist talk in our society amounts to little more than, "My musical taste is better than yours because... well, I'm smarter than you." That's fine. But in philosophical discussion it can lead to many muddles.

I can see a tu quoque coming, so I'd better clarify. The reason elitism with regard to Dylan is not just "pointless" but "downright silly" is not that I consider Dylan's work inferior to Bach's (I do, but that's beside the point) but that there has never been a musical culture of the sort described above around the music of Dylan, so it's not an elitism that longs for an era long passed but an elitism that... well, doesn't make any sense at all. And despite being called "folk music", Dylan's music has never been the music of "the folk" either. It is primarily the music of hipster English majors and middle-class people of a certain age who went through certain social upheavals. And it is no less worthwhile for all that.

A few questions and observations of little philosophical relevance.

Does "that Potter girl" refer to Rowling?

You do know that Springsteen has always cited Dylan as a major influence and that Dylan has spoken very highly of Springsteen, calling him among other things a performer who changed his life and the last great original? If some of Springsteen's fans (particularly during his period of "mega-stardom") were clueless that doesn't mean that his music is not most appropriately understood as being part of much the same milieu as Dylan's.

Interestingly, the misunderstanding and the political misappropriation emerged not from one George Will and not necessarily from fans who didn't "get" it. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_in_the_U.S.A._(song)#Political_reactions ) Also interesting: the song Springteen chose in responding to the misunderstanding, one not so readily misunderstood, was "Johnny 99", from what was probably his most Dylanesque album.

I would say this about "Born in the USA": if you're going to write a song with an infectious chorus, and you words of the chorus are intended ironically, don't be surprised if the song is completely misunderstood and the unfortunate effect is like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4tDP-yMwXI (Yes, that's a young Hugh Laurie, now star of "House".)

Apropos of this discussion, Laurie has also satirized absurdities in some of Dylan's music. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYdhNe66JsA

JPDeMouy

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The Fry and Laurie clips in my previous post reminded me of this, which I am sure some here will appreciate:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFD01r6ersw&NR=1

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--- In Wittrs@yahoogroups.com, "J D" <wittrsamr@...> wrote:
>
> The Fry and Laurie clips in my previous post reminded me of this, which I am sure some here will appreciate:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFD01r6ersw&NR=1

And that about wraps it up for the linguistic schools of philosophy!

Josh

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