An afterthought – I can see why my sports analogy might come across as 
simplistic and complaisant.
In terms of literary commentary, the notion of any “authority” – or an 
authoritative reading – needs to be constantly challenged. It’s contested 
ground, and rightly so. But that doesn’t mean we have to consider one 
reading equal to, or as valid as, another. It's not a question of "dictating 
to" but of "arguing for".
J

From: Jamie McKendrick
Sent: Tuesday, July 16, 2013 4:52 PM
To: British & Irish poets
Subject: Re: "Multiple Registers, Intertextuality and Boundaries of 
Interpretation in Veronica Forrest-Thompson"

I don’t think anyone has been claiming there is “such a thing as a correct 
reading”. But surely we’d agree that some readings are more convincing, or 
more suggestive, or more interesting, or more connected (or more whatever 
positive descriptor you’d care for) than others. For instance, Robin’s 
account of the cento-like intertextual manouvres of that Forrest-Thompson 
poem strike me as far more informative than anything that has gone before, 
though he stops short of an evaluation.
   Criticism is not the realm of “subjective interpretation” – it surely has 
to be inter-subjective, in other words what occurs to one reader has to be 
presented in terms that make sense to another reader. Interpretations are 
not absolute, but they can be more or less persuasive. Why, I wonder, 
especially in discussions of poetry does this seem so problematic? Maybe the 
idea that someone has a more attentive sense of the language or a wider 
culture to draw on is seen as threatening to a notion that language is 
everyone’s birthright (which of course it is)? And so an idea that a 
developed sense of language or wider reading etc. can help in understanding 
a poem is then seen as “elitist”. Poetry is a complex art and should be 
allowed to make demands on readers. It’s arguable that pretending every 
interpretation is equally valid is not just a dumbing-down of the art but 
also patronizing to those people whom the person who cries ‘elitist’ is 
meant to be defending.
  I’m trying to imagine another scenario – let’s say a sports commentator 
who has a crackbrained theory that the use of topspin in tennis was a form 
of cheating...it’s a silly example: someone like that just wouldn’t be 
employed. What we get at Wimbledon, say, are commentators, usually players, 
who know a great deal about the game, have often played it at the highest 
level, and are (more or less) engaging and articulate about what’s happening 
on the court. (I’d say McEnroe more, Henman less...) The analogy only takes 
us so far, but is enough to suggest why I have no problem with the idea of 
some poetry commentators being better informed and more persuasive than 
others. This includes critics with whom I strongly disagree, but whose 
approach I find illuminating all the same.

  Tim, as you suggest you have less sympathy with the position I’ve 
sketched, I’m just wondering where you disagree. If it’s because you see a 
mainstream/avant- divide here, I’d be quite surprised and curious to know 
where and how it was operating.
   As for Richards, like David I read Practical Criticism as a teenager and 
have hardly looked at it since. I can’t imagine it has had much effect on 
any particular mainstream poets – but it has had quite a lasting effect on 
the academic teaching of English literature. It’s a cumbersome and yet 
engaging work which tries, I think honestly, to systematize some of the 
things that can go wrong in readers’ (in this case Cambridge students’) 
responses to a poem presented anonymously and without other information. It’s 
an attempt to apply some kind of laboratory conditions to the act of reading 
and to work out what might help or hinder it. I can’t really recall if, 
underlying this approach, there’s some normative idea of how a poem should 
be read, but I suspect there is. Others here, I’m sure, can give a better 
account of the book. I’ve no particular investment in the approach, and am 
sceptical about its nascent scientism, but did find certain sections 
useful – as, for example, one on ‘mnemonic irrelevance’ where a readers’ 
private associations with particular words are seen to skew their 
interpretations of what was happening in a poem.

Best,
Jamie