Perrine Blog Post

I have to say that I feel enlightened after reading the Perrine article. While I was reading the poems for class earlier, I had no idea what was going on in these poems. I did my best, and came up with what I thought were some good ideas, but they were not "correct". While reading this article, I found myself agreeing with the ideas about poems. I agree that while more than one poem interpretation may not be completely wrong, a small amount always is more correct than the others. The idea that those which rely on the least assumptions makes complete sense, and I agree one hundred percent. The idea about symbols, I also thought was correct, where rather than being metaphors for other things, they are actually the things that are mentioned, but simultaneously represent something greater than themselves. This makes sense to me, rather than being just one representing another, one thing can actually represent both.

While reading this, I found the actual meanings of the poems that we read in class very interesting. I initially thought Dickinson's poem was about flowers and bees, and while I was right in a way, Perrine showed that a representation of a sunset actually makes sense. I suspect those who said the poem was about a sunset for homework, however looked up the poem and gained that knowledge through the internet. While reading about the poems by Melville and Whitman, I thought I already knew everything about these poems. I thought they were about war, and that was it. Little did I know that Melville's poem was actually about the stars. After rereading the poem, I thought that was definitely fitting, and had I thought to look past the soldiers, I probably would have seen the stars. The poem by William blake was about corruption and good, I figured that much. I didn't figure though, that it could have so many meanings, and that they all could be correct. Overall, I feel I have gained a deeper insight into the world of poetry through this article.