Lawrence Perrine's Poem Interpretation

     For the most part I agreed with Perrine's view of how poetry should be interpreted.  I agree that a poem may have different interpretations and mostly all of those are correct.  They only become incorrect when the reader does not take notice of the actual text.  The reader cannot base the entire interpretation off of assumption.  If it was all assumption than the reader would have no insight into the actual poem.  I also agreed that there is no one correct interpretation of a poem.  Everyone has their own  view and insight into the poem.  The interpretation with the fewest assumptions and the one with no contradictions is most likely the closest one to the author's original thoughts.

      I disagreed with Perrine in the fact that the "garden" interpretation of Emily Dickenson's poem is completely wrong.  Each reader views each work differently and the sunset theme seemed more far-fetched to me than the garden theme.  Dickenson mentions daffodils and that fact would lead a reader to think about flowers and that is still a valid interpretation.  I disagree that the sunset theory satisfies every detail of her poem.  I would like to know where Perrine came up with the idea of the poem being about a sunset because it seems made up and a huge assumption.  Although I agreed and disagreed with Perrine's statement that a poem has a set meaning.  Poems have the poet's intended meaning and any interpretation that a reader may deduce with it still making sense with the poem.  Each poem has many meanings with in the parameters of the text of the poem itself.