Interpretation as the Search for Meaning: Traditionally, interpretation is defined as “the search for the meaning,” but what is “meaning”?

The Intentionalist Thesis: A text means what its author intended it to mean. This is the so-called “intentionalist thesis.” While clearly circular, the intentionalist thesis can be useful once its keywords – text, meaning, author, intent – are unpacked.

Texts Are Created: If we say that a text is anything (whether that “thing” is a material object or an immaterial event) created by a human or group of humans in some deliberate way in order to accomplish some certain goal, there must exist someone or some group who did the creating.

Texts Have Authors: There are no texts without authors. That is, the existence of a text implies the existence of an author, a word we take from the Latin augere, “to increase,” and its cognate auctor, “one who causes to grow.” Etymologically speaking, the author of a text is the person or group of persons responsible for “increasing” an idea or situation into an object or event – that is, into a text. For our purposes, let’s say that the author is the agent of the actions that result in the text. The author is the one responsible for making an object or event in the way it was made. Simply put, the author is who made the text.

Authors Have Intents: If the existence of a text implies the existence of an author, the existence of an author in turn implies the existence of intent. Our word intent comes from the Latin tenere, “to hold,” and its cognate intendere, “to stretch out,” as in an archer’s bow that is held and stretched out to fire an arrow at a target. The author’s intent is the direction the author hopes his or her text will travel, what the author wants the text to do, and the actions the author performs in order to ensure the text does what he or she wants it to do. Intent is what an author does in an attempt to ensure his or her text travels in a certain direction, like an archer carving, feathering, knocking, drawing, aiming, and firing an arrow. What is the author trying to accomplish? How does the author go about accomplishing this goal? Why does the author think this goal is a good goal, and this route to that goal a good route? In sum, a text is intended to accomplish something, and the author is the one who does the intending, the one trying to accomplish something, the one taking certain steps in order to achieve certain goals.

Text, Author, Intent, Meaning: The existence of a text implies the existence of an author implies the existence of intent implies the existence of meaning. As a gerund (a verbal that functions as a noun), meaning expresses an action (“to mean”) but also a thing (“the meaning”): meaning is something that is done that becomes something that is. Meaning is what is done, or was done, including how it is or was done and why it is or was done. The meaning of a text is what is or was done to produce that text, including why what is or was done is or was done. 

Meaning as Intent: Thus, a text means what its author intended it to mean.

Interpretation as the Search for Intent: If interpretation is the search for meaning, interpretation is therefore the search for the author’s intent, for what the author was trying to accomplish and the steps he, she, or they took in order to achieve that goal. Our word interpretation comes from the Latin interpres, “messenger.” An interpretation is a message, and the interpreter is a messenger, someone who is taking a message from one person to another, from the author to an audience who is interested in the work of the author. The message being taken from the author to an audience is the meaning of the text, which (insofar as meaning equals intent) is the intent of the author.

Beyond Authorial Intent: Yet clearly there can be forces working upon a text beyond an author's conscious, deliberate goals. There can be social or historical events and values that shape how a text came into existence in the way that it did. Those forces are what the text signifies. 

Defining Interpretation: Interpretation is the search for meaning and significance. 

Defining Meaning: Meaning is an account of what an author wanted to communicate, what the author was trying to accomplish. 

Defining Significance: Significance is an explanation of how and why something came into existence (what the text points to), or of its importance (why it matters).

The Total Situation of the Work of Art: Consider these definitions in light of what M.H. Abrams called “the total situation of a work of art,” which is comprised of four “elements”: the Work, the Artist, the Audience, and the Universe.

The Work (OE weorc, “something done”) is the material literary artifact created through an orderly set of operations.

The Artist (L. ars, “skill, craft”) is the person whose orderly set of operations creates a material literary artifact.

The Audience (L. audire, “to hear”) is the group who experiences the material literary artifact.

The Universe (L. unus, “one” + vertere “to turn”) is the whole of existence that conditions both the artist and the audience.

Questions of Meaning: In our vocabulary, attention to how the artist created the work would invovle questions of meaning. 

Questions of Significance: Questions of significance would ask how the universe affected the author, the work, and its ongoing audiences, or how the work has affected audiences and the universe.