The Nature of Proof

As far as Perrine's views on the "correct" way to interpret poetry I would say I partially agree. Only partially because she says that ". . .That all interpretations of a poem are equally valid is a critical heresy. . ." I think that in many cases poets are deliberately ambiguous and, in fact, purposely put things in a poem that can be read 2 or sometimes many more different ways. I definitely agree with Perrine when she says that the solution that relies on the fewest assumptions is probably correct. As simple as that sounds I think that many times people overlook simple things like this when trying to interpret poetry. This concept really struck me when I reread the poems we had previously interpreted because I came up with more than one idea of what I thought the poem meant but when I simply looked at the numbers and which of my ideas had the fewest assumptions I found that interpretation to be correct.

This reading has definitely helped me to better understand poetry that I will read in the future. I used to look at poetry as just kind of a useless form of writing that didn't have any type of real deeper meaning other than to sound pretty. Now I feel like interpreting poetry and realizing that not all interpretations are completely correct, that poetry doesn't simply mean what I see it to mean, can allow me to better appreciate poetry and see it has some worth. I think that Perrine provides some real incite into interpreting poetry. I also like how Perrine looks at it almost from more of a numerical standpoint when she considers the number of details that don't rely on assumptions. I myself am more of a numbers and facts based person. I like science and math and that is something that has really distanced me from poetry since in many ways it seems to be the opposite of the "numbers" way of thinking. Now, however, I think I won't have as much trouble with poetry since I can look at it through more of my own way of thinking.