Previously at university, I had been told that reading a poet's life in their poems was limiting to your reading of the text and that there is this thing called IMAGINATION that some people can use. Who knew?
I did. So I tried not to limit myself to just reading what I knew about the poet in their piece. But it's so HARD. When you know Sylvia Plath killed herself its difficult to detach yourself from the knowledge of that and not read 'Lady Lazerus' to be Plath talking about and essentially planning her next suicide attempt. Does it make the poem more heart-wrenching knowing that her third attempt was successful? It does for me. But maybe I'd have a different opinion without that knowledge. I can't delete knowledge so yeah, tantrum.
When I read Plath extensively for like two days (WARNING: that is only for the mentally stable. And even then, make sure you have a loved one near by for cuddles.), I realised that, yeah, it's not great to limit myself to just one reading of a poem. It also doesn't do Plath any justice as a writer.
I was pretty sure Plath had a solid relationship with her dad but 'Daddy' screams daddy-problems, but then there's this argument that maybe Plath was just angry at her father for dying? Seems legitimate but that means you have to have prior knowledge of her father dying.
This was a woman who wrote a hella long poem about tulips - she is not a tulip, so it's clearly not about her, right?
WRONG. As per usual in this bloody place. (Again, WARNING: don't come to university thinking you know stuff, because you don't. You just don't.)
Today in my Twentieth Century American Literature lecture, the lecturer stood up at the front of the classroom (small module) and shat all over everything I knew.
He said that the line "who threw potato salad at CCNY lectures on Dadaism" in Allen Ginsberg's poem 'Howl' was private and that you needed prior knowledge of Ginsberg's friend Carl Solomon (whom the poem is dedicated to) because then you would know that Solomon did throw potato salad at CCNY lectures on Dadaism and then you would understand that line and not think that Ginsberg was just on drugs (which is was, if you EVEN READ any biography of his GOD DAMMIT).
Basically, your understanding of 'Howl' is limiting if you don't have a brief knowledge of Ginsberg and his fellow Beat poets such as Neil Cassidy (because then you wouldn't understand the "N.C, the secret hero of these poems" reference) and Jack Kerouac, etc.
Does this mean that NOT reading biography limits your reading? But then aren't you assuming that these great minds such as Plath and Ginsberg are just writing about their lives which is really easy and we could all do it and hey we all DO do it because I tweet like twice a day so I'm basically a poet?
I don't even know, I need a nap.
People bang on about the problem with reading biography; there are thousands of essays and books on it and I'm sure there are discussions everyday in one part of the world or another, but if someone writes a confessional poem, MUST we detach ourselves from the author?
I guess this goes into the realm of authorship and the questioning of its existence. So what if the author's intention is for an audience to read it as a parallel to their life? Does that mean we HAVE to read it like that? Where does that unwritten rule originate?
This arguably leads to yet another debate of approaching texts differently. Is that the right thing to do? Is there a right thing to do?
I guess what I want to add to this ongoing discussion is that yeah, ok, there will never be a wrong reading if you read it straight from the text, but what if that text has no other meaning that what the poet meant it to mean? If you find another one, great, but what does that leave you with? A point that no one else really understands? It's basically all interpretation which I have always flourished in but literature at this level suggests that there is definitely no right answer and even the creator of the text is wrong once it leaves the realm of said creator.
Art may be what you make of it, but sometimes people just need answers.
Conclusion: this discussion sparks more questions than it answers, which is basically university in a sentence.
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