7. Where or how does ambiguity come into play in a reader's experience? How might ambiguity work within a piece of literature (or art of any kind?) How does it impact our understanding, and appreciation of a text?
Ambiguity comes into play when the reader evaluates the text and comes to a plausible meaning of the open text. The readers can have varying interpretations of the meaning of the text, and because of this they can openly share. All interpretations will vary and none will be correct or incorrect since it is not explicitly stated. It triggers that crucial part of the brain that helps you think and comprehend others meaning with open minds. Ambiguity is a clever way for the writer to let the reader bend the story to their will and interpret the vague symbolism. I have found I better appreciate and admire a book that is full of Ambiguous meanings, it shows that the writer values the attention of the reader. Having a reader boggle their mind about a simple cut off ending or scenic descriptions means that there are invested and good readers, and it even helps them understand more about why the author might have placed open ended text.
Art is a source that relies on ambiguity. Most of the time, we as observes do not know the meaning behind certain paintings, and therefore are left to interpret as our own and critically analyse every little detail that the canvas has painted on it. The artist themselves know the meaning or inspiration behind the artwork, but left it ambiguous to possibly be meaningful for the onlookers themselves. A notable painting is ‘the scream’, created by the famous Norwegian artist Edvard Munch. This image is ambiguous itself, with no set meaning behind it, others analyze and try to understand the author's meaning of this painting. Some believe it shows anguish, while others interpret completely different emotions from this painting. A book that many are familiar with ‘the Aeneid, is often open ended. Virgil is descriptive with his writings, but often readers were confused with his usage of symbolism. During discussions of this book, many would interpret completely different meanings with Virgil's work, I believe this shows that Virgil was possibly striving for this, since many know the story of Aeneas, he wanted to leave open ends so that the audience could interpret their own take on the story in his work.
(the post kept messing up each time I would submit, and now the text is appearing to be middle centered. if anyone knows how to fix this please comment. Thank you!)
Yes! Great works and great artists/authors know the power of ambiguity. Virgil is certainly a great artist. I think he wanted his readers to be able to read his works on multiple levels. And it has worked--his pieces have certainly stood the test of time! And they keep us coming back to them.
ReplyDeleteI love that you brought up Virgil and I completely agree with Mrs. Mac. I believe that Virgil wrote in such a way that would make his readers question what he was saying. If we didn't question his work (or any work fir that matter) how would readers grow? Another thing that you mentions is the value of readers to the author. Last year in AP Lang, I learned that the author much write for their audience, they have to know what would interest a group to make them want to question the ideas in the work.
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