Perrine

     As I read through Perrine's guidelines for interpretation, I was at first brought back to my feelings toward Nabokov. I thought his explanation of poetic justice would be a highly specific and personally satisfying set of rules on which he has befallen after countless years of study. Perrine's guidelines were much more reasonable and attainable. Before reading this script, I had a fixed idea of poetry as an artistic expression. I would have argued for open interpretation because art is supposed to be a spiritual and personal expression. I now realize that poetry is as much a literary form as a sensual experience. It is also much more calculated and scientific. As Perrine suggests, a work may have many close interpretations but the author composes one with context and details that can ultimately mean only one thing. For me, this was an implicit challenge to interpret poems with acute logic.
    For the sake of intellectual advancement, I accept this challenge. It is something that takes time; that is why Perrine can speak so fluently and convincingly of its attainability. The only part of his explanation that confused me was his dialogue over Blake's poem. After reading through the end of the script, I expected him to condemn Blake's poem as being too vague-for leaving too much to the imagination for the reader. On the contrary, he goes back to his stance of logic, no contradictions, and economy. He essentially says the fault lies with the reader who makes an interpretation that does not meet his guidelines. This to me seems like a flagrant contradiction. If I am to make a logical conclusion but given a text in which the symbols could stand for a plethora of different higher meanings, then how can any explanation be wrong. I believe Perrine should have made a distinction between poems in which the author focuses the diction to a specific purpose and those whose meanings are vague. Could it be perhaps that a poet is amused by the various takes on his work? I know if I were a poet, it would be amusing if people who admired my work made logical debates. It brings out human creativity.