The Nature of Proof in the Interpretation of Poetry

Perrine's concept of incorrect and correct poetry interpretation was entirely new to me, and when I began to read the article, I was hesitant to accept his theory. I had always thought the poetry could mean many things to many people, and that was one of the unique quirks of poetry. With Perrine's explanation in mind, I now realize that poetry cannot mean everything to everyone, and that is a significant difference. Although poems may have more than one right interpretation, they cannot have an infinite number of meanings. Taking that into consideration, I agree with Perrine's method of determining the right interpretations, especially the second point that the explanation must be the most "economical." The idea that most stuck out to me and was perhaps was one of the most convincing points was Thomas Huxley's concept of the missing silverware. To me that point best summarized what Perrine was saying about the economical approach to interpreting poetry. With that illustration in mind, I better understand Perrine's point and the correct way to evaluate poetry's meaning. I had never thought of looking at the details in the poem and seeing if my interpretation is contradicted by any of those details. Now that I have an actual method for evaluating poetry, hopefully I will not produce as many "farfetched" or incorrect interpretations that Perrince mentioned.

Although I agreed with Perrine's approach to interpreting poetry, I was not in agreement with some of the comments he made concerning the poems he used as examples. When he explained the correct meaning behind the poems, he made the true interpretation seem so obvious. The interpretations are obviously not obvious; otherwise, he would not have to explain them. On the fourth page, when describing Melville's poem "The Night-March", Perrine commented, "The five words together form a constellation whose reference, once the pattern is recognized, is almost immediately clear." I do not think we need to have references in mind in order to interpret poetry, nor should we need to be familiar with other works by the same poet. Perrine mentions other works by Dickinson and references Whitman's life, suggesting the reader should have some background knowledge when reading poems. I do not necessarily agree with that; a reader should be able to correctly interpret a poem using just the poem itself. After the various explanations of poems I would have never correctly interpreted, I was back to agreeing with Perrine once he began to explain symbols in poetry. A concept I really liked was that "the areas of greatest meaning are created by symbolical poems...but even a symbol does not have unlimited meaning." I also understood the difference between metaphors in poems, like the poems by Dickinson and Melville, and symbolical poems like "The Sick Rose" by William Blake.