The Intentional Fallacy and the Literary-ness of Dubstep

Dear Maria Cristina,
Part of what made English 200 such a tricky class, was that it often offered contradictory views. As the Formalists and New Critics demanded that only the text be looked at and the author/reader were totally irrelevant, other theories such as psychoanalysis and New Historicism claimed that yes, the author's intent matters and you Formalists can get off your high horses. Get some sober horses instead.

I must admit, coming out of the class I was all "New Critic happy" and to me, nothing but the text mattered. Forget readers; forget writers--the work was coming out of thin air! I was so against authorial intent, I almost tried giving myself half vision, where I could only see the top halves of books, while the author's name would be a blur.

Except I didn't. Because that would be weird.

Since then, I've reconsidered my views on literature. 

I've found that the writer-text-reader inclusive theories are both more poignant and less narrow. Rhetorical theory allows the author's voice to grow stronger through the text, but not be dominated by the text. You can still enjoy a book without knowing an author's biographical history, but it enriches the reading experience to gain some insight on the context in which the author is writing.

Sometimes, however, the author can become overshadowed by the tone of the text. Take Vladamir Knabokov's (sp?) Lolita. We might read the text, and automatically pinpoint the author as a filthy, perverted old man. While he might just be taking a completely different perspective, it's easy to associate the author's perspectives with the text's perspectives. This happens almost constantly with actors. I mean, if I were to meet Daniel Radcliffe, the first thing I'd say to him is "marry me!" but the second thing would be "dude, you're Harry Potter!"

A piece of music that I would argue poignantly mimics this phenomenon is "Shadows" by Lindsey Stirling:

Her shadow has all the complex dance moves that hold our attention, while the artist is seemingly left in the background. At times, she seems to be copying the creation, rather than the creation copying her. That's not to say this always happens in literature, but sometimes the author becomes the text.

Which leads me to a question: Do you think music can be studied in the same way literature can? I know at the tail end of English 201 we studied The Sex Pistols in relation to Shakespeare. Was that stretching it too far? Or could we use the same methods to deconstruct music as we use for deconstructing literature? It's especially interesting with music sans lyrics. There's still a certain tone, a certain effect it has on the audience, but could musical methods be akin to rhetorical devices?

Peace and Ponies,
Kira
(I almost had to pause and try to remember what my spiritual name was. Then I remembered I didn't have a spiritual name. Has it only been 2 days?).