"The Nature of..." Post

I agree with Perrine's approach to determing "correct" interpretations of poetry. Obviously anything can't really be the right meaning. The author wants us to read it in the way he wrote it, but would rather us interpret the poem in our own way if we don't understand it at first. There aren'texact correct interpretations in poetry, but by using context clues, we can make better meanings. His two criteria actually do make sense to me. Poems stress me out. I never know when I am reading it right. Knowing that there CAN be more than one interpretation puts me at ease, even though I know my interpreations don't usually make any sense. In this class studying poetry will be hard for me. I take everything to literally. If I pay attention to how my meaning relates to the details of the poem and isn't too "far-fetched", then at least I know I am on the right track.

It is easy to read a poem literally and not get any meaning from it, but Perrine takes that to the next twelve levels. The problem of symbols is actually knowing that there are symbols being used. We all understand what a symbol is, but can we find them? "A literary symbol means something more than what it is". This concept confuses me. How can I interpret the poem using context clues if I don't understand the clues? Because I take everything for what it is, it is hard for me to even understand a poem that doesn't use symbols. Now there are two levels of depth I have to dig through. Interpreting symbols is just like interpreting a poem, but if I don't get the poem near the correct interpretation, then I will be way off when I try to figure out the meaning of symbols.