I Just Wanted to Say It
Two thoughts:
1. Allegories are sort of silly, and crude symbolism is generally looked down on. And yet everyone gives in to the "allegorical temptation," seeing symbols everywhere ("note that his teeth are white, white symbolizes death, which is a theme of the work"). Often this reasoning is employed to determine "what the author meant" or what the author "was really saying." I don't have much to say about this, except that it's really fucking annoying. It seems to me that writing (and art generally) has progressed far past this, why hasn't our analysis kept up? In all likelihood I'm just not reading the right analysis.
2. In the same vein, I think we sometimes radically overthink what a poem "means." So for instance, I just sent this e-mail to Alan:
I have eaten
the cookies
that were in
the Tupperware
and which
you were probably
saving
for a snack
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so flavorful
I changed 4 words of a famous poem, and yet it worked perfectly as what it was: an apology for eating some fucking cookies. So in other words, despite having read it in about 5 different classes growing up, what never struck me about the poem is that it's a perfectly functional apology. You know, for eating the plums. That were in the icebox.
1. Allegories are sort of silly, and crude symbolism is generally looked down on. And yet everyone gives in to the "allegorical temptation," seeing symbols everywhere ("note that his teeth are white, white symbolizes death, which is a theme of the work"). Often this reasoning is employed to determine "what the author meant" or what the author "was really saying." I don't have much to say about this, except that it's really fucking annoying. It seems to me that writing (and art generally) has progressed far past this, why hasn't our analysis kept up? In all likelihood I'm just not reading the right analysis.
2. In the same vein, I think we sometimes radically overthink what a poem "means." So for instance, I just sent this e-mail to Alan:
I have eaten
the cookies
that were in
the Tupperware
and which
you were probably
saving
for a snack
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so flavorful
I changed 4 words of a famous poem, and yet it worked perfectly as what it was: an apology for eating some fucking cookies. So in other words, despite having read it in about 5 different classes growing up, what never struck me about the poem is that it's a perfectly functional apology. You know, for eating the plums. That were in the icebox.
posted by James | 11:43 PM
1 Comments:
1. Yeah, that kind of analysis will get you a B+. Good writers tend to mark their symbolism, so e.g. the jaundiced sunlight is legit to read as a symbol.
2. You'll admit, I suppose, that your changes hurt the WCW poem as a poem. Why does word choice matter? The answer isn't just sound, and must have something to do with the connotations and etymologies of the words. The vague complex of hidden secondary meanings has something to do with why poems are good, and it's generally worthwhile to tease them out. Again, there are stupid ways to do this, but they don't invalidate the practice.
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