Monday, September 6, 2010

Poetry... grrrrr

I do not like poetry that much because I would much rather read something that went into more detail and actually unfolded instead of just ending after a couple of lines, but I suppose I'll put my feelings aside and try to enjoy it.
Perrine's approach to determining correct interpretations make sense to me, but I think there are always exceptions. Sometimes, I think that details in poems are there to add to the poem, but should not be zeroed in on like they usually are. I, personally, would like to read a poem that is not cryptic and that doesn't hurt my head, but uses its details as an aid to the meaning, not the whole meaning. I have not studied poetry, so my analysis might be totally wrong, but I do not like the emphasis put on things that are analyzed, but could be totally irrelevant. I do agree with the second one because I think that random poetry is created for children and for laughs. I was struck by the "that it is satisfactorily account for as many as possible of the known facts without being contradicted by any fact." It took me a fifth read to understand the words and that even if there are as many as possible that are not contradictory, there will be some that are not in that "as many as possible" because it doesn't say that all will. It is confusing because the first criteria is that all details must not contradict each other or it is wrong.
This article did change some of my interpretations of the poems and how to interpret poems in the future, but I still have problems with poems in general. I get how the stars in The Night March can be described as an army and I now understand how by describing stars as what they aren't can give a more vivid and can keep dead metaphors from showing up. However, I don't like the untitled poem by Emily Dickinson. I feel almost cheated from the real meaning of the poem, the sunset, because there are so many beautiful ways to describe a sunset. I did not get the sunset in this poem. I saw a garden that was full of life, but when I read this paper and learned it was a sunset I felt like I could have seen it, but my analysis kept me from it. I do understand the "any interpretation is acceptable which lies in that area." The horse example helped me a lot when it came to understanding. The more detail the author puts in a poem, the less he leaves to the reader to come up with on their own. The author has their own meaning, but I think now that I have read this, they want the audience to get it, but they do not want them to only get it because it is black and white. I think the trick is to find a happy medium between too much detail and too little detail, so that the audience can understand it fully.

1 comment:

  1. does this article make you look forward to, or dread, our 1st quarter full of poetry?!

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