autorintention

Autorintention, or authorial intent, refers to the intended meaning, purpose, or message that a creator aims to convey through a work, such as a novel, film, or artwork. In literary and cultural criticism, it is a central topic in debates about how a text should be interpreted and whose perspective should shape meaning.

Historically, authorial intent has been both defended and challenged. The so-called intentional fallacy argues that a text's meaning cannot be determined by the author's stated aims and that analysis should rely on the text itself and its formal properties rather than biographical data. In contrast, some critics maintain that understanding an author's aims can illuminate context, symbolism, and craft.

Approaches to studying autorintention vary. Some researchers examine authors' letters, diaries, interviews, and drafts to reconstruct intended messages; others favor close reading of the text and its reception by audiences, treating authorial intent as one of several contextual factors rather than a controlling determinant.

Critics note that authorial intent is often difficult or impossible to verify, and that authorial statements may be contradictory or evolve over time. Additionally, many works acquire meanings beyond the author's purposes as readers, cultural contexts, and intertextual networks interact with the text.

In practice, discussions of autorintention often sit alongside other theories such as authorial voice, reader-response theory, and post-structuralism. While some analyses privilege the creator's aims, others prioritize the text itself or the interpretations produced by readers and cultural discourse.