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BRITISH-IRISH-POETS  July 2013

BRITISH-IRISH-POETS July 2013

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Subject:

Re: "Multiple Registers, Intertextuality and Boundaries of Interpretation in Veronica Forrest-Thompson"

From:

Jeffrey Side <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

British & Irish poets <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Wed, 17 Jul 2013 12:26:05 +0100

Content-Type:

text/plain

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Parts/Attachments

text/plain (34 lines)

Jamie,

You say:

“I am committed to the statement "Interpretations are not absolute" and there is no contradiction or inconsistency in believing that we can move outside what you call "a personal exegesis". It's the equivalent of saying we may not know the whole truth, but we can - with effort - more nearly approach it.”

This is assuming that there is an inherent ultimate single meaning in a poetic text that can be compared to the concept of “a whole truth”. Apart from this being a false analogy, as truth is usually discerned by either empirical scientific observation or philosophical discussion, the latter usually problematical, it is again assuming something that needs to be demonstrated, i.e., that texts contain individual meanings. So I do still think that your statement (“Interpretations are not absolute but they can be more or less persuasive”) is self-contradictory. 

When you say it was me who introduced the term “value judgement” into this discussion you are correct. My use of the term was directly in response to your saying:

“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.”

To me, your conclusion that debating the problematic nature of poetic language is a “dumbing-down” of art and “patronizing” are value judgment statements. When I mentioned that this was a value judgement, you said: ““Value judgments and ideology" obviously enter into criticism, but they're not what I'm talking about here." Then adding:

“Unless you mean my point that some arguments about literature are more persuasive than others, which of course implies a value judgment. I take them (value judgments) to be universal - in the weak sense that we can’t help making them.”

Both statements seem to me to support your view that value judgments are relevant in a discussion about problematical poetic language. By your now saying, regarding the last sentence of the above quote (“I take them (value judgments) to be universal - in the weak sense that we can’t help making them.”) that it was “as a general and truistic remark to the effect that we all make value judgments, and in that ("weak") sense they are "universal"”, implies that because of this your views on this matter can’t be anything other than tinged with value judgments. To me, this clearly shows that your views are, indeed, value judgment based. As you are saying yourself that it is impossible to avoid such. But the issue, really, isn’t the inevitability of value judgments in everyday discourse and life in general but in this particular discussion. Besides, when say that: 

“I wrote that “I don't argue that 'texts can "contain" value judgments and ideological attitudes'”, not because I don't believe they can, but because the question is indifferent to my argument.”

This, as I said in an earlier email, does prove that you think texts can contain value judgments and ideological attitudes independent of readers’ minds that are engaged with the text, which was what confirmed my suspicions, and the reason I was trying to gain clarification from you. You have now clarified it twice for me, so that is something. When you say the “question is indifferent to my argument”, I don’t think it is, in light of the totality of what you have said.

You say:

“I accept that poetry may be (at least sometimes) a special category, though I don't follow why you should therefore never find yourself persuaded by someone else's response to a particular poem. But fair enough, no-one's asking you to be persuaded. It just seems to me a rather sad and closed-up space to be occupying.”

I don’t think it sad at all. Why should it be? We each bring and take from a poem whatever is significant or interesting to us. Why should my not being persuaded by other peoples’ emotional or otherwise responses to a poem be considered sad? I can understand why it would be sad from your viewpoint, perhaps, seeing as you believe that poems contain single verifiable meanings that can be ascertained by reason and seen as, to use your word again, “persuasive”.

You say:

“Since you write essays on poetry, my simple point was that if your readers were like you, immovable on the question of poetic interpretations, then the activity of criticism, specifically poetry criticism, would be futile.”

I said I was only immovable in my view that texts can be exegetically various, not that I value my interpretation of a particular poem over anyone else’s, It is ok for every reader to have any response they want to a poem. Indeed, that is what all my writings have been advocating for nearly 20 years, now.

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