Perrine Poetry Blog Entry

Perrine Poetry Blog Entry

What I found most interesting about Perrine's approach to interpreting poems is how he relates it just the same to the development of scientific hypothesis. He treats the different details of the poem like facts in science and he logically analyzes the details and makes sure that none counter each other for a specific interpretation. From those two points that Perrine makes on the first page, that is as specific as his instructions appear. After that, as he delves into the poems he has offered as examples, you see that interpreting poems is much more complicated and obscene than he makes it seem. For each poem there are a plethora of intelligible interpretations and sometimes the difference between one or the other is a single word. Or in the case of The Sick Rose, you must realize that trying  to discern that one, fleeting analysis is in folly because according to Perrine, they are all credible. In a way it frustrates me, because now I have found that trying to analyze these poems is not as basic as I previously thought, and I will need much practice. Although the man does give descent advice that could possibly elicit some clever insight on my part later on, I now see that as hard as I try, if I am able to accurately propose the interpretation of a poem, it will be tangential at best and it will be the result of my own luck.

I do not understand why he suddenly references the philosophical quality of a poem near the end of his example of the Melville poem. His sudden revelation that ,"Melville ends his poem with a question of a doubt" has no grounding. He merely just announces this hefty assumption and expects that the momentum of his previous logic and ethos legitimize his thoughts. I will admit I can clearly see where God can be a subject of this poem, mostly when he references a chief, but I do not gain the sense of any doubt from Melville's writing and Perrines non-explanation does not make me feel otherwise. In fact I believe the poem is more of a testament to God. It feels like an ode to a such a being powerful enough to create these formations of stars, that routinely "stream" across the sky in perfect order. It maddens me that a man who so harshly rectify's interpretations that lack reasoning would so quickly go back on his word and declare a very prominent statement and then just leave it there, ringing without an answer. I am not dismissing though his idea that the poem questions the existence of God. Although I believe the opposite I am open to any other interpretation, be that it has substantial reasoning, just as Perrines preaches. Well in this case, the man has none, and in this case, I feel that he is the misguided one.