This debate is not limited to the realm of poetry. Constitutional scholars debate this all the time.

Sorry, my browser magically posted for me before I'm ready.

Marcia

[This message has been edited by Marcia Karp (edited April 25, 2006).]

Kate wrote:
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The Road Less Travelled invites different interpretations, some that would concentrate on the speaker's worldly obligations, others that would read more of a "world weariness" into the phrase "miles to go." The woods could be interpreted as a temptation to shun one set of responsibilites for another, or as the unconscious, or as death.
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How's that again? Stopping by Woods on The Road Not Taken on a Snowy Evening?

G.

[This message has been edited by Golias (edited April 25, 2006).]

I agree with Carol. It’s more than meaning — you hope to work an effect — but meaning is surely part of it.

If you really think the author’s intentions are irrelevant, why would you post work on these boards for feedback? If it isn’t to find out how far you’re succeeding in your intentions, why do it?

And why would you comment on the poems of others, in terms of this or that “coming across” or whether the semicolons are in the right places, if communication of what’s in the author’s mind is so off the point?

Marilyn,
I reject (a.) absolutely. I have often heard it and have always thought "baloney" or words to that effect.

(b.) is also fallible. I am not one who thinks that a poem means what it says. That's where the unconscious enters the process. Writing depends as much on the unconscious as on the conscious. Each individual has different life-shaping experiences and we can't know whether we mean the same thing when we use words. The clues are more in the shape of the poem.
As a trained musician it was always my earnest endeavour to enter the mind of a composer but I knew it was ultimately impossible. I would have considered it cheap and unworthy of any interpreter not to attempt to be faithful to the composer's intentions. Every performance is different but they all start at that point. The same goes for poetry. For me the greatest joy is to feel an affinity with a poet from another era and location. To sense that we shared some timeless experience. Of course the differences will be enormous but I believe the loss is the reader's if no attempt is made to bridge the gulf.

Contemporay poetry is no less difficult. The reward is an occasional meeting of minds. And even more remarkable in poetry from any era, the gift of a new experience.
Janet

Can't we reject "B" without going so far as to say that the author's intentions are irrelevant? How about something like, the author's intentions (insofar as we can discern them) are important but not controlling. As Daniel Haar has already suggested, this is how most legal scholars treat constitutional interpretation.

Imagine that someone created a computer program that could generate sonnets. The programmer made it so that the computer understood iambic pentameter and permissible substitutions and also understood how to construct English sentences. The computer then generated millions of sonnets, most of which were not very interesting, but one of which was a word-for-word reproduction of one of Shakespeare's. Would you interpret the computer's sonnet differently from the Shakespeare sonnet or would you treat them as identical? Would the question of the computer's intentions enter into the matter at all?

epigone

As I was reading Michael Cantor's response I was nodding, thinking of all the times I've heard people defend their work in workshops by placing all the responsibility for a poem's worth in the hands of readers. I swear there are people who would post the ingredients list from the side of a box of cake mix and spit on anyone who didn't appreciate its brilliance.

BUT...I agree with Orwn. An argument that's mostly right can be twisted around and used for any purpose, just like Scripture. So just because some people would use the "everyone's entitled to his own interpretion" view to rationalize laziness, that doesn't mean it's not essentially true. I've seen poets in TDE behave as if we were all playing a guessing game and whoever came closest to the author's intent was "correct." Pshaw! The poem is everything you put in it, not just what you meant to.

BUT...everyone's interpretation equally valid? Er, that's kind of like saying there are no dumb questions. Everyone says it, but then when you ask a dumb question they still sigh. I think everyONE is equally entitled to his own interpretation, but not every interpretation is itself equally valid. It's possible for an interpretation to be just...well, dumb.

Arrgh, last again. Will somebody please post something? I hate having my name in the index.

Otay. So--what was the answer?

R.

Well, Robin, after some very thoughtful and insightful discussion, I think Rose's last response pretty well sums up the conclusions most of us have come to (or have held to begin with) on this topic, i.e. that ". . .everyone is entitled to his/her own interpretation, but not every interpretation is itself equally valid. It's possible for an interpretation to be just, well, dumb."

I'm pretty satisfied with this summing-up. Not everyone will be, though, because that's the nature of the beast-- I mean, the FORUM. Which is as it should be, yes? Unanimity is not what we're seeking, after all . . .

Marilyn