Intention, Interpretation, and the Limits of Meaning: A Response to A. C. Spearing and H. Marshall Leicester, Jr

Author / Editor
Kahn, Victoria.

Title
Intention, Interpretation, and the Limits of Meaning: A Response to A. C. Spearing and H. Marshall Leicester, Jr

Published
Exemplaria 2 (1990): 279-85.

Description
Both Spearing and Leicester focus on the question of authorial intention as an interpretive norm. By acknowledging that Chaucer may intend private allusions, Spearing opens the possibility that one audience's "use" is another audience's "allusion," thereby suggesting that intention does not govern meaning. Leicester defines deconstruction as both a modern way of reading and one of Chaucer's intentions, positing a dialectical relationship between a text and its reception.

Chaucer Subjects
Background and General Criticism.