In the Mind's Eye

So the end of my Modern British Poetry class is drawing near, and through all the discussions we’ve had over the several poems we’ve read, I’ve come away with one interesting little insight.  When looking at the several responses I have given to the discussion questions for each poem, I have realized something about the way I interpret poetry, and probably for that matter, all literary works:  I tend to interpret literature quite… well… literally.  I tend towards looking closely at sections of words and phrases to try to understand what each could mean, and then I try to piece all of those meanings together to come up with an overall interpretation.  I struggle with symbolism and figurative language, and as far as fragmentation and obscurity go… well, let’s just say I won’t be publishing a critical book about modern poetry anytime soon.  I’m sure I’ve driven my classmates crazy with some of my discussion responses, to which I can only say, I’m sorry; this is just the way I am. 

You see, when thinking about my responses and realizing the literalness (not to be confused with literariness!) of my interpretations, I came to the conclusion that I really shouldn’t be surprised; this is just the type of person that I am.  It’s the way I see the world.  I’m a black-and-white, objective, everything-should-be-clear kind of girl, so it’s not too shocking that I would interpret writing in this way—which leads me to my insight.  In seeing this about myself, I realized that everyone else probably does this as well.  We can’t help but interpret writing in the same way and through the same lens we interpret everything in our world.  It’s simply impossible for us to get outside of our heads and our hearts to interpret outside the boundaries of our worldviews.  This is not to say that we cannot be open-minded and consider other possibilities and even find a meaning to a poem that is in contrast with our world view; I just see that when interpreting writing that is subjective, just as when interpreting life, we are all going to exhibit certain tendencies of interpretation that are direct results of the way we view our world.  This came to be specifically clear to me in my response to one of the poems we looked at this week:  “Hawk Roosting” by Ted Hughes.  I ended up responding to the poem based on a major tenet of what I believe about humanity; the way I view the world manifested itself in the way I interpreted what the poem was saying, and I must also say in a way with which others probably disagreed.

I admit that this little insight is nothing super profound, but it’s kind of nice to discover these little things about myself.  At the very least, I’m hoping that this discovery will help me be a little more confident about posting my thoughts on different works of literature.  Most of the time, I’m throwing interpretations out there hoping they don’t sound too very stupid.  If anything, maybe now I can post my views with the assurance of knowing that it’s okay that others may not agree with me; it’s just the way that I see things, and if not right, at least it’s valid.