In my creative writing class, during our first unit, poetry, I learned that meaning is not perhaps the most important part of reading a poem. We were instructed to read each poem at least twice, once for ‘pleasure,’ and again for the mechanics, the effect, and craft elements. I liked our professor’s approach because although he did not have anything against authorial intent, he was often more interested in the effect of the poem or piece. This reminded me of a New Critical Reading, to take the poem in itself, separate of its writer and historical context. That’s not to say that I prefer this type of reading. I think there are serious drawbacks to not considering the context of a piece. I’ve done research on my own of the pieces we’ve read, as have other students, and we discussed the context of the writing as well. Perhaps it sometimes worked because it was a class on gaining a better understanding of the choices writers make, why, and applying that knowledge to our own work.
But I also think there are potential drawbacks to considering a piece only intertextually: “One of the most immediate consequences of such a proliferation of intertextual theories has been the progressive dissolution of the text as a coherent and self-contained unit of meaning, which has led, in turn, to a shift of emphasis from the individual text to the way in which texts relate to one another” (Intertextuality: Origins and Development of the Concept). Perhaps this is not as applicable to a poetry unit in which we read and analyze poems as “self-contained systems,” but as the introduction of Intertextuality states, “There are always other words in a word, other texts in a text.”
In the case of the poem on the gazebo, it is helpful, even necessary to contextualize. What I got from my creative writing professor’s approach was a bit of freedom. I don’t mean to say that reading with context is a burden. But throughout our education, I think there has been a pressure to be “right.” Maybe not. This is just a thought. But with the emphasis on standardized tests, multiple-choice exams, and rote memorization, sometimes this “need to be right” carried into literature. But there is no “right” way of understanding literature, and there is no one “right” paper.
Perhaps some of us in the creative writing class were taking apart poems and dissecting them as if we were taking standardized tests. I think I was, and still am, afraid of being wrong. The fear from high school, of saying the wrong thing, is still with me. I believe it is a fear validated from a very young age, when we become more hesitant to raise our hands. So, perhaps it is not so much “getting” the meaning of a certain line or word in a poem, but the process of getting there: we read the text, again and again, dissecting it, to understand. We come across the meaning and its meaning to us. This repetition has carried me in both my English classes and informed many of the lessons revolving the material. And in reference to some of the blog posts about “Reapers” and repetition, I appreciated Dr. Beth’s advice to consult the texts of this class, whether it be the syllabus, hand-outs, or the books themselves. And I appreciated how both classes did not shy away from acknowledging an ambivalence/confusion with the material, from encouraging multiple readings of the texts, and from reaping the benefits of doing so.