> If the reader reads into the poem, more than what the poet has
> intended the poem to convey, then we have a big problem. In a sense,
> that is what we have been witnessing with some interpretations of run
> of the mill verses. If the interpretations tend to be more than the
> so-called 'gestalt' of the poem, aren't we trekking on dangerous
> grounds?
I was reading a biography of CP Brown recently and found some of his
observations to be relevant to this discussion. In his quest to
understand poems in old Telugu works (full of Sanskrit) Brown used to
consult different scholars. He often came across people
who used such occasions not so much to explain the poem but to show off
their scholarship. In his observations Brown found the scholars to be less
enthusiastic about simple poems like those of Vemana which did not offer
much scope for excessive interpretation.
Regards,
Sitaramayya Ari.