Michael J. Mahon wrote:
Tom Zuchowski noted:I remember a great essay by Isaac Asimov in which he told of meeting an English professor at a cocktail party. The professor proceeded to tell Dr. Asimov all about the wonderful hidden meanings in a story he had written. When Dr. Asimov protested that the professor had it all wrong, professor assured Dr. Asimov that he couldn't possibly know the inner meanings of the story, because he was merely the author.Although the author is undoubtedly the arbiter of what he _meant_ to say, he is seldom the best to judge what he _actually_ said.
I'm not so sure that I'd agree with "seldom", and I certainly couldn't agree with that the author isn't the best judge of "wonderful hidden meanings" that he had not deliberated created.
J.R.R. Tolkien, in his introduction (or was it the preface?) to Lord of the Rings attacked exactly the same point - he hated allegory as a genre, and LOTR was consciously not an allegory, nor was it a fictionalization of the Second World War, though he did acknowledge that his expericences in the war could have colored his writing.
Keep in mind that Tolkien was an Oxford professor in philology. Roy
For the same reason that one who adds up a column of numbers is not the best person to verify the addition--he already thinks he knows the answer!