{"id":712,"date":"2017-06-20T14:44:04","date_gmt":"2017-06-20T13:44:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/licor.hivolda.no\/?page_id=712"},"modified":"2017-08-20T11:10:48","modified_gmt":"2017-08-20T10:10:48","slug":"the-power-of-poetry-and-the-pleasure-of-interpretation-case-study","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/licor.hivolda.no\/?page_id=712","title":{"rendered":"The power of poetry and the pleasure of interpretation: case study"},"content":{"rendered":"

The purpose of this exercise is to demonstrate two crucial points about poetry:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. that what any given poem is able to do depends on the way it is put together (which is to say that\u00a0what poetry makes happen<\/em> is determined by\u00a0how it is made<\/em>)<\/li>\n
  2. that the reason a poem can be interpreted in a number of different ways is not so much because its content can elicit different responses from different people (though this is true as well) as that its formal properties elicit different responses from different people and give each of us a slightly different vantage point from which to experience and interpret the material it contains<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    In order to see how these two things work for ourselves, we will be taking\u00a0Emily Dickinson\u2019s poem 657 (\u2018I dwell in Possibility\u2019) as our case study. This is a poem about poetry and it claims above all that poetry is superior to prose. As we will see, the poem bases this claim more on what it regards as the superior manner in which poetry is put together than on any putative differences between the language and themes of poetry and prose.<\/p>\n

    Your first task<\/strong> is to read the poem carefully until you feel you have acquired a clear sense of what it is trying to say:<\/p>\n

    I dwell in Possibility \u2013<\/div>\n
    A fairer House than Prose \u2013<\/div>\n
    More numerous of Windows \u2013<\/div>\n
    Superior \u2013 for Doors \u2013<\/div>\n
    <\/div>\n
    Of Chambers as the Cedars \u2013<\/div>\n
    Impregnable of eye \u2013<\/div>\n
    And for an everlasting Roof<\/div>\n
    The Gambrels of the Sky \u2013<\/div>\n
    <\/div>\n
    Of Visitors \u2013 the fairest \u2013<\/div>\n
    For Occupation \u2013 This \u2013<\/div>\n
    The spreading wide my narrow Hands<\/div>\n
    To gather Paradise \u2013<\/div>\n
    <\/div>\n
    <\/div>\n
    \u00a0Your\u00a0second task\u00a0<\/strong>is to<\/div>\n
      \n
    1. Identify what the poem says about poetry<\/li>\n
    2. Identify the degree to which the poem \u2018does what it says\u2019 \u2013 i.e. to identify the degree to which this poem itself contains and demonstrates the powers and qualities it ascribes to the house of poetry in general<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      In order to accomplish the second of these tasks, you might find it helpful to compare and contrast the poem with both a paraphrase and a prose version of it in the manner advocated here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

      Your third task<\/strong> once you have completed the other two is to watch the following video, in which I offer my own analysis of how I believe this poem \u2018does what it says\u2019 and uses the distinctive formal properties of poetry to demonstrate its claim that the experience of reading a poem is completely different from the experience of reading a work of prose. (I will leave it to you to decide which – \u00a0if either – is better):<\/p>\n