Perrine - The Nature of Proof in the Interpretation of Poetry

"No poet, however, likes to be caught in the predicament of having to explain his own poems"

    I must say, I agree 100% with the above sentence. The word "poetry" immediately evokes a sense of mystery in a reader and the thrill of being allowed to interpret to the ends of the earth. However, to me, a 17-year-old with limited poetic experience, poetry presents a challenge. Good poetry always seem to be ridiculously ambiguous, and as much as I enjoy figuring things out for myself, it gets tiring after a while. When Perrine said, "for any given poem there are correct and incorrect readings," my heart sank. I always previously viewed poetry as a chance to broaden the horizons of my imagination, but now it is almost a scientific process as Perrine also says. Science has never been my favorite subject, but english is, and reading that the two are paralleled in poetry is not the most inviting thing.

      The presence of the word "proof" in the title of this article is an easy analogy for me to relate to. As much as I did not enjoy proofs in Geometry, I understood them. I loved that they spelled out math in x amount of steps, and I rejoiced in knowing beyond a doubt that I had reached the correct conclusion. With poetry, I can only hope for the same thing, and Perrine practically guarantees that for me when he proclaimed that the best interpretation of poetry is the most logical. Or, in other words, the most practical. I can handle practical. Perrine is obviously a scientific man as well as a literary analyst because an unscientific man could never develop a process so straightforward and easy to follow. Poets are notorious for their free-spirited witticisms, but Perrine is rather foolproof. As tedious as his approach to poetry is, I must admit that I a thankful for it because it has already helped me and I haven't even begun to fully understand these poems I am reading.