We discussed “the intentional fallacy” in relation to New Critical interpretations of texts. Try looking up that term in the Bedford Guide. The New Critics argued that the meaning of a text was not dependent upon an author’s intentions, and should, in fact, be studied apart from them (and from the author’s biography). Instead, they favored a more formal analysis of the text, which they felt was a more objective method of interpretation.

Of course, when an author enters the text as a character or voice, that brings up an interesting set of issues (we’ll see Martin Amis doing this in a different way later in the semester). One way to think about an author’s presence in the text is that the author herself becomes a character, and assumes a persona. As we discuss Charlotte Temple, we’ll want to think about what kind of persona Rowson assumes.