Laurence Perrine thinks that there is a correct way to analyze poetry - that one is either right or wrong. It seems as if he wants to make this a math problem, and you either can figure out the right answer or you can't. "For logical proof, though not experimental proof, is at least as possible in the interpretation of poetry as it is, say, in a court of law." Well, I've got news for you, Laurence - this is literature, not math, and literature requires a little more depth than correct or incorrect.
Laurence overlooks the ambiguities and grey areas of literature - he assumes that a "far-fetched" answer is automatically completely wrong. The monkey solution he was ranting about? Yeah, it's kind of weird, but it, in this situation, is just as possible as the human thief breaking into the house. Art is not necessarily real or logical, and it can't be judged that way. Think of how many artists were pathologically insane when they created some of their finest works; that means that the meanings behind those works probably reflected their mental statuses. Let's look at a couple of these great figures and see how crazy they and their works were.
Vincent van Gogh: Obviously, you have to be a little crazy to voluntarily cut off your ear. This guy definitely had some problems, but his work is incredible and evokes emotions that you can't call wrong.
The Beatles: They may not have necessarily been crazy, but tell me, Laurence, could you give me the correct interpretation of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds?"
All I'm trying to say is that poetry isn't ever wrong, and even the professionals know that (T.S. Elliot: "The meaning maybe different with everyone."). Only an artist knows what he or she meant by the work, but a reader's idea may add truth to that initial meaning. If we can gain perspective, knowledge, and understanding from a new idea about a poem or a song, how is that incorrect?
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