Authorial Intention
How relevant is the author’s interpretation of his/her own work? Whilst cycling home from Greenwich one evening recently I had an idea where a man rapes his shadow and is sentenced to live in the dark. I actually forgot about it, as I was preoccupied trying to stay upright, and luckily the idea resurfaced a few days later – at a time when I had access to a pen and paper. As with pretty much every other idea I have, I wrote a few thoughts down, left it, and came back at a later date. I’m still not completely happy with the final result, as I’ve managed to create a more concise version of the same story in just six words: Shadow rapist sentenced: lifetime of darkness I do prefer the six-word version, though I will continue to talk about the original for now. There are certain subjects that I don’t feel comfortable writing about – I won’t go into them now – but essentially it is because either I am not the right person to talk about such a topic, or I don’t hav