I wonder what he would make of and how he would process E.M. Forster's Maurice. Published in 1970, but written in 1913-14. There would be nothing to look up for cross reference at the time it was written, because the people of the time when Forester wrote it never saw it. Forster more than many contemporaries seemed intent in taking a snapshot of British society in flux, right at that moment of change from the old world to the new. Maurice would seem to say that the story being told between its pages was also present in Edwardian England. Present enough to write a touching story about it. It just couldn't be published. The presence of the book coming to light and then published in 1970 would seem to indicate we have a flawed, erroneous, probably even redacted, view of that time, as regards the subject matter touched upon in this book.
One of my professors back in college said that good books "talk to" other books written during the same period (or even before in some cases). That is, a good writer is aware of what his/her contemporaries are doing. So all hope isn't lost when someone from today reads a book written in the 18th century. All we have to do is read a wide variety of books from that time period and see how these books are communicating with one another. That should then give us an idea of what sorts of issues the writers back then were writing about and where they were coming from.
I remember reading something from On Writing, by Stephan King that was interesting to think about. Namely, he compared creative writing to telepathy, which, if I remember correctly, was because we read descriptions subjectively essentially. Now, applying that here, I always viewed art as an empathetic experience, where, essentially, I'm taking a trip inside someone else's(or multiple persons perhaps) head. (Take of the disturbing or what have you subtext of that statement as you will.) My point? To some extent, I don't think the author would know everything that their work says about themselves, or others, because of what influences may emerge from say, your subconscious. I don't mean this in a Freudian sense, or am not trying to anyway, but just a lack of awareness of self, if that makes any sense. Sorry, this is probably horribly muddled. Otherwise, I tend to look at works for any political or social subtext they may have, which ranges from Marxist to Feminist critique. After all, my personal definition of a Myth is any story that has a political or social message (came up with in World Mythology class.)
Referring back to the original post, I admit to being confused. I think a problem is that you haven't properly defined 'meaning'. You say 'what is the point of literature that says nothing'. In the trivial sense, it uses words, so clearly it says something. I'm not seeing a clear enough distinction between 'meaning' 'point' and 'saying something (or nothing)' to - ahem - find a concrete meaning in this sentence. You ask if the glance the fighter received had a meaning. We can talk about the intention of the glance-giver, and the fighter's interpretation of that glance. Are either of these meanings? If we asked either party, they'd probably say 'yes' - 'I meant this'; 'I thought he meant that'. There is no objective meaning here that I can see. But a little later you say: "we can find complete meaning in texts where the author is unknown." If by 'complete' you mean something we can all agree upon, your party fight scene seems to contradict this. Then you mention the text left by the receding sea, which perhaps can be interpreted as having a meaning. To my mind, this is different from a text left by a dead author. One might choose, in the former case, to disregard any meaning, no matter how clear the words left in the sand, on the grounds that they had been left by chance. Or, being of a more spiritual nature, one might choose to take the marks for words and read meaning into them. With the dead author, we know that the words were written with intention, though we might not be able to agree on what that intention was. Perhaps we can extract extra 'meaning' - meaning that goes beyond the obvious conscious intention of the author - by analysis of the dead author's text; for example, by looking at the role material wealth plays in the text, since we at least know that material wealth was an operating factor on the author and society when the text was written. But in the case of the marks in the sand, even if they looked like the opening paragraph from the Communist Manifesto, would this be a valid way of interpreting their meaning? I'd argue not, at least not without invoking a supernatural cause for the marks. I find this statement a little problematic too: "If you are determined to find a condemnation in Jane Eyre of the capitalist system then chances are you are going to find it." Are we equally likely to find support for the capitalist system? If so, haven't we somewhat degraded the concept of 'meaning'? I'm finding it very difficult to articulate myself here. It's a slippery thing, I guess, using language to talk about language. I hope at least some of what I've said makes sense and is something you feel able to respond to.
Took me a while (years) finally to realize the deeper meaning of this. I used to think literary theory was useless precisely because it is so easy to convince yourself that a text means what you think it means. But when I realized the purpose of literary theory in the first place was never to find absolute truth, but rather, to utilize creative writing as a launchpad for interesting ways of thinking about individuals and about humanity in general, I found that I actually enjoyed thinking in those interesting ways, even if they seemed to contradict each other. Fundamentally, it is all just entertainment, even if it happens to have an educational bonus. Yes! This is what I have been saying for quite some time. That is actually exactly how I would like my own creative writing to be read. It is one of the reasons why I like the idea of publishing anonymously. For me, creative writing is a way of giving back to the world. Enjoying fiction has become one of the main things I live for, and it has changed me in so many amazing ways. When I look back on my life, if find I have caused people to experience the same things I have experienced, then I will consider that a life well-spent. So all I want is for people to find something in my creative writing that moves them. The last thing I want is to distract them with pointless questions of what I meant by it, or, worse, to color people's perception of it negatively if they have a bone to pick with me. (e.g. if I were Ayn Rand and I wanted to write a book that @Lemex would give a fair chance, then I would definitely not attach my name to it. ) I have seen far too many negative reviews (not by Lemex, and not of Ayn Rand's books) along the lines of: "This book just follows the stale pattern <author> keeps using in her books." "I could not finish this book because I kept reading it in <author's> voice and I kept picturing him smiling smugly and thinking 'I'm so clever' whenever a character would say something snarky." "Putting this character through this ordeal is just a cheap ploy to manipulate the reader's feelings so that she tells her friends how great the book is and then they buy it, and look how rich <author> is getting from that trick." I vowed never to become like the people who write those reviews. Out of that knee-jerk reaction developed a philosophy that information is a beautiful thing that inherently deserves to be evaluated in its own right, and that anything that discourages such open-minded evaluation (namely, when the perceiver's perception of the creator negatively colors his perception of the creation) is one of the most toxic things to society.
@Vronsky, your post is completely understandable. You are right too, people use 'meaning' in this context. In a way it does not have a meaning, other than something like 'a message vicariously expressed'. The problem is that theory uses language in rather specialized ways, even when it tries not to. Many times it is exactly because as you say it is trying to use language to deconstruct language. It's also the realisation though, and I think an important one, that no one knows everything - and it maybe in a way that no one knows anything. In all this time, Socrates is still important to us.
As I tried to sleep last night, I thought of a number of examples that perhaps demonstrate different uses of the word 'meaning': 1) The intention of the author. 2) Mary the reader's interpretation of the intention of the author. 3) Mary's interpretation after reading again much more carefully, reading related books, taking the time to examine large-scale structures not immediately apparent on a first reading, etc. 4) John's the reader's interpretation of the intention of the author. 5) What both Mary and John can agree on about their interpretations of the intention of the author These are all an attempt to understand the intention of the author, but they can all produce different interpretations. Then we might add 6) Mary's emotional response to the text. Is this the emotional response intended by the author? And then there things such as 7) The role of the patriarchy as expressed in the text, very likely not consciously intended by the author at all. For example, I'm sure people can read a great deal about the role women play into The Lord Of The Rings, and I expect that would be much more than Tolkien originally intended.
