April 21, 2006

Misreadings

By LAWRENCE DOUGLAS

"Hoist by your own petard." I've never really understood the expression — what, after all, is a petard? — but as my first novel nears publication, I've had occasion to reflect on its meaning.

For the past decade, I've taught an interdisciplinary course at Amherst College on interpretation. The course is a semester-long colloquy on "intentionalism," the theory that a text should be read with the goal of recovering the intentions of its author. The theory is

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