Hello Internet it’s me again. And today I am addressing an interesting topic. Meaning. As an English major with an emphasis in Creative Writing trying to find meaning in a work of poetry is something I battle with a regular basis, both as a writer and a reader.
With Valentine’s Day being a big day and all I decided to attempt my year’s challenge of writing a love poem in honor of the Saint who was martyred for marrying couples when it was made illegal by Emperor Claudius the II. After completing the poem I realized how I could incorporate it to Stanley Fish.
Looking at the poem and talking to some friends I found three different ways groups of people would see my poem. There is the way I look at it, as the author. It’s meaning up to my interpretation, as simply a funny Valentine’s Day poem. My friends on the other hand, who know me fairly well and know my historical tendencies, saw it only as me trying to a girl that I like her. I then began to wonder what would happen if I were to put the poem on a social networking sight such as Likealittle.com. Like a little is a website where you can go and post “flirts” about people you see and whatnot. The reason I thought about this scenario was when a friend of mine asked me if the poem was about her. This reminded me of how she would spend hours on LikeALittle, trying to convince herself that every post was about her. She would go as far as to convince herself she was in places when a post said she was when she was at the wrong campus or what not.
Now, bringing Stanley Fish back into everything. Stanley Fish, states in his essay, “How to Recognize a Poem When You See One” that groups of people interpret poems based on the social situation they find themselves in. Here we have three different interpretation based on three different “Interpretive communities,” one of the author, one of the not so critical critique, and of the dreamer. Each of us making meaning based on our own experiences, mine as a joke, my friends looking for gossip, and the social networker hoping to find a reason for spending hours on sites like Likealittle.com.
Now I am not a very pick writer. I have my own intentions and meaning but I am not one to deny others from looking for meaning themselves. After all that is what got me into writing in the first place. Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion and interpretations of poetry. You CAN if you so choose to look at it with authorial intent, or knowing the author look at it with the historical mind, or as a New Critic and taking the poetry at face value without any care for what the author intended. It’s all up to you I guess.
Oh and if you want to read the poem that inspired this post here ya go
The social situation would not be "author, critic, or dreamer" (which are identities that you are ascribing, not situations.) Rather, the social situations would be "FaceBook, possible object of infatuation (girlfriend), dorm room."
ReplyDeleteSo, if I hand a poem to a group of friends in my dorm, the way they will go about interpreting the poem will clearly be different than the way a girl will interpret it if I hand it to her (and if she, naturally in such a situation, thinks it's about her.) I once wrote a poem in which I wanted to use "eyes" as a metaphor for something. For me, it was just a metaphor. I showed it to my (then) girlfriend. She assumed I was talking about her actual eyes. I wasn't even talking about her in the poem -- I was just thinking abstractly about the concept of eyes.... I am suddenly reminded of the classic Joni Mitchell song "You're So Vain."
Now, is Fish's idea of "interpretive communities" sufficient for understanding what's going on when we think of ourselves as dreamers, authors, or critics, or when we think a song is about us?
I enjoyed reading your blog and the insight that you made about the readings that we have done in class. It helped me to understand some of the material better and it was also good to see your ideas on how to interpret them into things that we all can relate to.
ReplyDeleteI think this is the major problem with being the author. We talk a lot in class about giving power to the reader, which is all well and good, but thats easy to say as the reader. For the author, if you have a specific meaning to get across, and people take something completely different out of it, it can be really frustrating. I fell your pain.
ReplyDeleteI have a friend that does the same thing. She takes every situation and somehow squeezes herself into it, even if it is blatantly not about her! Giving the power to the reader can be dangerous. Great poem too, I love it!
ReplyDeleteI really liked you're poem! and I agree with the comment above, I have a friend who similarly relates everything to herself. Everything is taken personal and it gets frustrating. Could this show how language can be manipulated to mean whatever we choose and be an example of how we cannot fully express ourselves with it because of its limitations?
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