The term was proposed by W. K. Wimsatt and Monroe C.
Beardsley in the article “The Intentional Fallacy”.
They asserted that an author’s intended aims and meanings in
writing a literary work—whether these are asserted by the author or merely
inferred from our knowledge of the author’s life and opinions—are irrelevant to
the literary critic, because the meaning, structure and value of a text are
inherent within the finished, free standing, and public work of literature
itself.
Reference to the author’s supposed proposes, to the author’s
personal situation and state of mind is held to be harmful mistake, because it
diverts our attention to such external matters, and thus may cause the
neglecting of the internal constitution and inherent value of the literary
product.