Varieties of Authorial Intention

John Farrell is Professor of Literature at Claremont McKenna College, USA. He is also the author of Paranoia and Modernity and Freud’s Paranoid Quest.

• Preface.- Introduction: The Origins of an Intellectual Taboo.- Chapter One: Actions, Intentions, Authors, Works.- Chapter Two: Uncertainty, Indeterminacy, Omniscience, and Other Matters.- Chapter Three: Unconscious Intentions.- Chapter Four: Authorship and Literary Value.- Conclusion.-

“The Varieties of Authorial Intention is a book that literary scholars of every specialization would benefit from reading. It is one of the most down-to-earth and sensible books ever written about the study of literature. By exposing the contradictions and incoherence created by proponents of the textual fallacy, Farrell clears the way for a major improvement in the quality of thought in English departments.” (Leonard Neidorf, Studia Neophilologica, December, 2017)