Hi Maggie. I've been wanting to comment on this post for a while now but had to delay it because work is claiming for his due. Kicks work!
It's a difficult subject you tackle here and it opens many questions: on one hand intent is necessary for an author to construct his work, without intent no direction, no form, no meaning and I do think that in academic analysis especially, taking into account the author's intent is important to understand a work. But and the problem (or the richness) is there, we all know that there's isn't such a thing as a total mastery of one's work, hence the possibility of multiple readings. Now as for the particular scene you evoke I don't know how people came to the conclusion that Xander's speech was the voice of the author dictating how to understand the B-R relationship, I believe though that Xander's speech revealed one layer of their relationship (Buffy closing off), it gave meaning to little facts interspersed in the text of the show. But it was only one layer. What always struck me in Btvs, is how the show generally avoided to impose one meaning by carefully constructing the POV of the protagonists, one of the best examples being in season 7 the Buffy-Giles confrontation about Spike. Both have good reasons supporting their respective positions, none of them is evidently wrong.
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Date: 2009-10-10 04:03 pm (UTC)It's a difficult subject you tackle here and it opens many questions: on one hand intent is necessary for an author to construct his work, without intent no direction, no form, no meaning and I do think that in academic analysis especially, taking into account the author's intent is important to understand a work. But and the problem (or the richness) is there, we all know that there's isn't such a thing as a total mastery of one's work, hence the possibility of multiple readings. Now as for the particular scene you evoke I don't know how people came to the conclusion that Xander's speech was the voice of the author dictating how to understand the B-R relationship, I believe though that Xander's speech revealed one layer of their relationship (Buffy closing off), it gave meaning to little facts interspersed in the text of the show. But it was only one layer. What always struck me in Btvs, is how the show generally avoided to impose one meaning by carefully constructing the POV of the protagonists, one of the best examples being in season 7 the Buffy-Giles confrontation about Spike. Both have good reasons supporting their respective positions, none of them is evidently wrong.