Intentionality Fallacy
Intentional Fallacy
The insistence that the ultimate meaning of an expression must be consistent with the intention of the person from whom the communication originated. For example, a work of fiction that is widely received as a blatant allegory must necessarily not be regarded as such if the author intended it not to be so.
Origin
Literary critics W. K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley formulated the "Intentional Fallacy" in their 1946 essay published in The Verbal Icon, a core concept of New Criticism. They argued that "the design or intention of the author is neither available nor desirable as a standard for judging the success of a work of literary art." Once published, a work has objective status; its meanings belong to the reading public, and the work exists as a stand-alone object independent of authorial intent. Internal evidence (the words themselves) is open for analysis, while external evidence (author statements about the work) does not belong to literary criticism.