"How can you say your truth is better than ours?"

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."


This quote from Romeo and Juliet and from Mumford and Sons both depict my stern disagreement with Perrine's opinion that there are right and wrong interpretations of poetry. Though he makes some good points I believe that poetry, like so many things in life, is open to and almost dependent on interpretation. A poem has an original meaning that the author intended; however, there can be a much deeper analysis lying underneath that possibly the author hadn't even intended. This is common in literature as I'm sure when great writers like J.K. Rowling only intended to write a fictional work about a wizard boy, but created a great novel full of symbols and hidden themes that provoke such analysis. If anything I believe this actually shows a sign of a great author. Poetry tends to be much more cryptic but still has the same guidelines. Perrine said it himself when he described how poets limit their works by giving them definite meaning. If one wishes to truly be a great poet then they have to let their work transcend their own original interpretation and allow it to lend itself to that of several others. Perrine argues that a poet limits the possible interpretations by word choice or certain aspects; however, Shakespeare says otherwise in Romeo and Juliet. Words given specific names are nothing more than words, but when you put your own experience or interpretation behind those words true feeling arises from them. Another aspect of a great poet is one creates a piece that evokes a personal feeling for the reader. If a poem truly can be limited to one specific meaning or another then it limits the audience it can connect with and thus loses its validity as a work. Though some may argue that this isn't a requirement because everyone has different experiences that are unique from many others, I say that everyone feels the same spectrum of emotions. Sure one can feel them more intensely or they derive from different circumstances, but they are the same emotions everyone else feels and thus can be expressed in a piece creating a connection with the reader. Perrine's idea is that of an idealist with a closed mind who hopes to give some specific definition to literature and poetry. He feels the need to be correct in his interpretation and that all others who differ should be wrong. However, I think that the beauty of literature and poetry is that there isn't an answer. People view the world through different lives and until you've lived through them all you cannot possibly say that their view of it is more or less correct than yours. I believe poetry is a small glance into a poets world through the use of words as tools of expression and emotion. We all live in the same world but all view it differently either due to time, location, or lifestyle. Because of this everyone's interpretation of this "glance into a poet's world" is almost definitely bound to differ from that of the poet's. There is nothing wrong or incorrect about this; it's just different and through this difference comes the beauty and growth that can only come from multiple interpretations of poetry and literature.