Re: Flooding... compare and contrast

Sena wrote:
Countess-Palatine Blackberry the Perplexed of Divine Intervention. said...
I didn't get things like English Literature. "If that's what Shakespeare meant then why didn't he write it ?"

Why must there be a 'hidden meaning' to everything?
Don't you think there very often is?

I don't know. I never found it if there was.

90% of 'hidden meanings' were put there by the reader. The great thing is that poetry is about what you think it is about. Sometimes you DO have to be careful with structure and the significance of certain imagery: the meaning of flower references in certain sonnets for example, and the 'correct' form of wording or style for a poem has significance that is now obscure as those references are no longer current. Teaching the critical method properly teaches you to make distinctions between what the poet wrote and what it means to the reader. Knowing the history and the period references for a particular piece of literature can add significantly to the meaning.

All lit can be *read* whatever way you like, but some is INTENDED to have more than a surface meaning. Joyce's Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man is like that: on the surface it's the tale of a boy who grows up to become a student and a writer, but the structure and language echo his growth, going from the simple language and straight forward narrative through the complexities and circumlocutions of adolescence and back to the clarity of the mature eye. Fascinating! On the other hand, folk have debated the 'alegory' of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings for yonks, ignoring the authors frequently reiterated statement that there WAS no allegory: it was a straight forward narrative with no hidden messages! In fact, he disliked allegory and said so at length.

I'm lucky: in literature as in music, my tastes are eclectic, and sometimes rather esoteric. In music I range from the music of the court of Eleanore of Aquitaine up through Basque folk music and Handel to Aaron Copeland and Led Zeppelin, and in literature up from a neat translation of the Laxdela Saga, through Maciavelli's The Prince and the classic Renaissance sonnet to Restoration drama, some of the Grand Novels of the 19th C and the weird off-shoots of Lord Dunsanay and William Morris, and out into the clear calm of SF. The icing on the literary cake for me are things like war poetry (WWI and WWII particularly) and modern children's writing, some of which is superb.

I also like neatly written romantic novels (like those of Katie Fforde) and McFly! So there!
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