I hate that misconception. No literary theory worth its salt argues that "you can't say someone's opinion is wrong". All they say is that you can get different interpretations from the same piece of texts. Confusing the two is like saying all fourlegged creatures are cats. It bugs me no end.

Of course some interpretations are wrong, or certainly lack validity. But that must be based in whether they follow the text or not. Not what we THINK the author may have intended. On authorial intention, see below.






Boutade? I looked it up in the oed, and it says it means a sally or sudden outburst. I am not sure I understand.

The problem with authorial intention is (in the main) twofold:
-we have no access to it.
-it cannot fix meaning.

The first is basically down to psychoanalysis, I suppose. Even disregarding that the author might make up his intention after the fact (lie or deceive himself), the whole theory of the subconscious can be summed up in the knowledge that we do not have conscious control over all aspects of our actions.

The second is down to the nature of language as shared. Because it is communal and the meaning in it is not fixed, but subject to continuous change and individual interpretation: this means that not only is the idea of a pure thought transmitted directly through language to be decoded by the listener/reader an inherent impossibility (since language is not mathematical with fixed rules for encoding or decoding), the author is even formulating his text in borrowed language -- something that he does not control.

Neither of these are really difficult concepts, but because the trend in our society tends towards oversimplification, it becomes a caricature of itself.