Critical Reading Workshop #3: Working With Interpretations

 

My Papa's Waltz The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy. We romped until the pans Slid from the kitchen shelf; My mother's countenance Could not unfrown itself. The hand that held my wrist Was battered on one knuckle: At every step you missed My right ear scraped a buckle. You beat time on my head With a palm caked hard by dirt, Then waltzed me off to bed Still clinging to your shirt. --Theodore Roethke

 

 

 

 

 

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Lesson Take Away#1: What is the source of an authorative reading? What would make one interpretation stronger or better than another?

Authorial intent?--Perhaps, but as readers we don't have authorial intent to go on, and it can be fruitless and even dangerous to speculate what that intent might be. (Look up the "intentional fallacy.").

The most plausible/reasonable evidence in the text?--Yes.
That is, we find the best concrete evidence within the text and make the most reasonable inferences based upon that evidence.

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Lesson Take Away #2: Is there a single, authoratative (correct), fixed meaning of a poem or text? What if we can't fix on a single meaning? Does that mean there are no "right" answers and a poem can mean anything?

Certainly, poems like "My Papa's Waltz" have multiple meaning that are plausible (i.e. there is substantial evidence from the text to support the interpretation). It is coercive (and even arrogant) to assert a single, correct intepretation of a text? BUT that does not mean that one interpretation might not be "stronger" or more plausible than another.

The standard by which all interpretations are judged is the adequacy and persuasiveness of the evidence that serves as grounds for that interpretation.

adequacy = how good and how much evidence

persuasiveness = how reasonable the interpretations infered from the evidence are (do they fit? do they make sense?)

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Lesson Take Away #3: The Slipperyness of Evidence
Facts are never just facts (unfortunately). We depend upon evidence to support our interpretations and arguments, but that evidence itself is subject to interpretation. We also interpret facts and evidence we use to ground our claims. This fact calls into question the entire interpretive enterprise? BUT all fields of human endeavor are subject to interpretive uncertainties.

Dewey's "reflective thinking" is one method we can apply to make the best, most informed and reasonable conclusions. Successful arguments in the face of competing interpretations of the facts and evidence are judged based upon the adequacy and persuasiveness of the evidence presented.

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