On the question of whether "a writer seeks to manipulate a desired
audience", the question very much seems to be one of intention.
Manipulation in this case definitely has implications of trying to
obtain an advantage or an unfair outcome - unfavourable intent.
If we used a less value-laden description (influence, perhaps), it
strikes me that I - perhaps alone! - often set out to influence others
through some of my poems, at least by evoking an response. I get an
uneasy feeling that I'm on suspect theoretical ground here, but hey, I
don't claim I'm successful in my intent.
Martin
Douglas Barbour wrote:
> Oh [probably, Roger, in which case everyone is 'sincere'...
>
> But Mark was talking, if I remember rightly, about whether or not a
> writer seeks to manipulate a desired audience. I guess that's a kind
> of intention, whether or not it actually works?
>
> I would tend to agree that we're always readers, but then I
> immediately begin to wonder if that's right, too....
>
> My more serious point in that post had to do with that question of
> craft, which as readers we can, I guess, only intuit, out of a
> sensibility constructed by all our (other) reading....
>
> Doug
> On 28-Oct-07, at 3:12 AM, Roger Day wrote:
>
>> Outside v inside readings - isnt that some form of false dichotomy?
>> Neither exists as we're only readers and we impose our own
>> rose-coloured glasses on everything we read. I thought we'd excluded
>> intentional fallacies?
>>
>> Roger
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