Sunday, February 16, 2014
Poetry is an expression of the author's feelings. The composition can be as simple or as complex as the emotion as it betrays. One can easily make light of an emotion or twist it into a much darker theme. Poems can also tell stories. Some stories are easily read while others are have to be pulled out, bit by bit and, put together. Songs just a easily mean something, because there is always a motive to write. Some significant event caused the author to pick up a pen and jot down his or her feelings at that moment. But the question stands, how do we know if they really meant that? If we look back at Foster's How to Read Literature Like a Professor, he urges us that if we think it means that it does. Do you agree with this? Is that red rock he just threw really his anger, or did the author just think that the rock should be red? What makes it easier to find what the author meant? What makes it harder? How much of our interpretations come from our experiences? Why is it that we all find different answers in the same symbol?
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I think that when analyzing a work of literature, the author makes it easier by allowing for some symbols to be easy to pick out, easy to connect to something else. What makes it harder is when the author uses everyday items as symbols, some that would mean nothing to many people, and therefore are overlooked. Many authors use these everyday items within their works as symbols and connect things to them, making it necessary to look for them. Finding meaning is easier when the author openly talks about emotions and then uses a symbol easily related to it. Harder is when the author doesn't speak of circumstances relating to this. However, we do garner many interpretations from our own experiences because we can relate to the feelings and therefore can pick them out. We all have different answers because we all have different experiences. Some of us may have similar ones, but we all have our own bit and pieces that are different.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that the author does intend to have some symbols much easier to find than others. The author would probably do this because it could be a key component within the plot. Other symbols do not come as easily. Being able to find a symbol really depends on your experiences and the way that you think. Many times a symbol means one thing for one person and another for another person. This is what makes us unique. Everyone thinks differently. If it is a symbol for one person, it may not be a symbol for another.
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ReplyDeleteI believe that everything can have a meaning. The author may include certain symbols purposely although many of them probably were not. I believe that if the reader believes that it has a certain meaning then it is a symbol whether the author intended it to be or not. There is no limit on thoughts. Sometimes a symbol is a major idea in the book. Interpreting some symbols and not others can change our opinion of a literary work. This is because everyone has different experiences and excels in different things. We all come from different parents and different cultures. This is probably a major reason that we all interpret things differently. Everyone is unique; therefore, we all have different thoughts. Everything stands for something. I believe that our experiences determine how we interpret nearly everything in life.
ReplyDeleteColton I agree that is a reader thinks a symbol is something, then it is. I like that you said there is no limit on thoughts. If that is true, then there should be no right or wrong answers when analyzing anything. It should all be one's thoughts and ideas about the piece of work. It is hard for me to understand how graders grade when analyzing because it doesn't seem like there are any wrong answers. I believe there can only be better answers than wrong answers. The deeper the thought, the better.
DeleteI agree that our experiences bring a unique and different perspective to every piece of writing we read. If a person can provide solid reasoning for why they believe something is a symbol, than it is a symbol. This means that there will be disagreement among people interpreting the same piece of work. These arguments can open the minds of people to different outlooks that they may have not seen before.
DeleteWell like anything else in this world, the more one practices something, the better they become at it. At the beginning of AP last year I couldn't analyze anything very well. With lots of assignments and practice I became better. The same rings true today. It is very hard for me to read poetry and fully understand it. My mind starts to wander and I have no clue about what is going on in the poem, but the more I read and try to pay close attention the better I become at understanding and analyzing poetry. I believe that authors do use little things as symbols, but not as much as we think. I don't think most authors use a symbol for everything, but that is what makes poetry great. There really is no wrong answer because the authors never come out and say whether it is right or wrong.
ReplyDeleteI am the same way, I have always struggled with analyzing but since I have taken Ap English I have became better at analyzing. I feel that most people think there is only one way to analyze specific piece of work and that is why it makes it so hard. I feel that even though this is true cause the author when writing probably only means for an idea mean a certain thing that when reading the reader should be able to interpret it the way they understand it.
DeleteI think as reader, we each bring something unique to the piece of writing. With that, I also think that if a person thinks there is a meaning, there is a meaning. Because we all interpret a different type of symbolism, we might not all agree. Even if we all have different perspectives, I think a person needs evidence from the text to support their thoughts. There is a difference between thinking the red rock symbolizes anger for no apparent reason and thinking it represents anger because of clues located in the text. Going with this, I also think that the author does have intentions of certain items meaning certain things, but the reader is not limited to just what the author originally thought.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that the reader's meaning counts even if the author did not intend the meaning. I also like how you included that there needs to be textual evidence. This is an obvious fact that I overlooked and you helped me to realize it. Most often, the textual evidence will be what gives the reader an idea, but there are times when that might not work. Readers could be reading only the surface and not totally understanding the work and this could result in false ideas without actual evidence. So this is what shows how truly important it is to have solid evidence from the text.
DeleteI feel authors use certain symbols for the reader to analyze but I don't feel everything they write has a deeper meaning behind it. Even if poets and authors did write with deeper meanings behind all their work the only person who would know the true meaning is the person who wrote it. This is because we are all different and will take a meaning of one thing completely different than that of what someone else would understand it as. With this being said I feel that this means there are endless ways to analyze writing and people will analyze differently but nobody is wrong cause analyzing is like an opinion.
ReplyDeleteNo one is wrong. I agree. That is one of the beauties of poetry and literature of all kinds; there may be hundreds of interpretations of one line of literature and all of them are right. Opinions are never wrong, but are simply opinions. They are right to the individual expressing them. Anyone has the freedom to express opinion. People may not agree with certain opinions, but that does not make them wrong, it just makes them different. Poems may have every fragment analyzed under a microscope, but they will probably always be interpreted differently. The opinions of readers may give hundreds of meanings to even the smallest works of literature; not one of those opinions is wrong.
DeleteEverybody finds different interpretations of specific symbols because we have all had different experiences. We have all grown and matured in a way that is unique to each of us as individuals. Not only do we interpret symbols differently, we often find connections and personal meanings to what we are reading due to our past experiences. I think Foster's claim is true in the aspect of reading for personal gain. He is saying that if you think a symbol is a symbol, then let it be one, because you, as the reader, can then take what you are reading to a deeper and more personal level. I am sure, though, that often times the symbols that readers find in text, were not written intentionally by the author.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that there is a possibility that we do find symbols not meant by the author. We find our own reasons for the symbols we see and we rationalize that this must have been a symbols, because we see it as one.
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ReplyDeleteReactions from people will all be different. This stems from the experiences each person has experienced. These experiences also make us prideful in the way we interpret situations as well as literature. We want to think that the way we see the world is the right way. This is something that will make Foster's claims true and helpful. I do believe that Foster is correct. Being able to interpret literature in each individual's own way makes the read much more personal. It definitely does not feel good when one comes up with an amazing idea about how a work is presented and is later told that their idea was not correct. Literature is meant to be interpreted! The author had their own ideas they put into their writing, but that does not mean they want to reader to be restricted to just what the author meant. The author's goal is to reach the readers on a personal level and that is not accomplished when everyone is forced to look at the work in the same way. Each of us can pick out a piece of any work that we can emotionally relate to. So what if Sally does not understand a poem the way that Mark does, that is not the way it was meant to be. Everyone is an individual.
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