The Art of Interpreting

Interpreting poetry has never been my strong point. I get lost in the imagery and descriptions being posed or the deep metaphors which I am supposed to catch on to. After reading Laurence Perrine's "The Nature of Proof in the Interpretation of Poetry," I realized that I'm not necessarily alone in my lack of interpreting "correctly" for every poem I read. I found peace in T.S Eliot's response that "if it suits you that way, then that is all right with me." This means that our interpretation may be different from the next person's or even the author's but that doesn't single out the inaccuracy of our own suggested meaning. The strategy that most stuck to me about judging the interpretation of the poem is all the pieces do add up- don't be so quick to analyze and throw out a meaning for a poem. I'll admit that I found myself doing just that when comparing Whitman and Melville's poems; I completely missed the night's stars references from diction like "gleam," "bright," or "twinkling." However, I don't think that my interpretation of Melville's poem was completely wrong even though I did not pick up on the "army of stars."

I really like the cone of light image which Perrine describes: " The cone of light is the area of meaning. Its point is precise and easily located. But its base fades out into the atmosphere." The logic here is that when dealing with poetry, one has to be within the realm of interpretation, and cannot simply throw out answers which may not remotely apply. Words in poetry were said to have "richer meaning" than words in any other work; therefore, they require more in depth reading. Still, there are some words that always represent or can be understand to mean the similar thing every time. A rose, for instance, will never represent something ugly or dying in a poem; likewise, the "cone of light" for a rose is limited around a symbol for something beautiful, delicate, and alive.

From the article, I can take away an understanding that reading poetry takes patience and time. It requires more than one read-through. Though poetry can be interpreted different ways, there is a certain area of topics and understanding with which analysis falls under. Poetry is art, not just words. "...A rose is not an ink blot. Nor is a poem."