I enjoyed both of these chapters immensely. When the authors talk about the presence of an author serving as a sort of guarantee for meaning, it goes along with what I've called "The Dylan Effect" for a few years; Simply knowing that a certain individual wrote it makes everyone feel like it must. But that's not why I'm writing this. No, I'm here to answer the question about the poem.
After reading it, I felt like "Metaphors of a Magnifico" was very slyly commenting on the tendency of people to look for meaning in everything. The frequent use of ellipses read as though the narrator of the poem was ruminating on the subjects contained therein. "Yet is certain as meaning...," reads as though the narrator is trying to convince himself that it must have meaning.
"Of what was I thinking?" is the moment when his thoughts get away from him, he loses what he thought was there for a meaning. I particularly like the last two lines, where he begins to repeat the imagery in his head for what will undoubtedly be a long period of time, certain there's meaning he's missing. It's that obsessive human need to find meaning in everything, which shoots off our need- oh, and I have it too. I got it bad- to justify our existence. While there is meaning in a lot of things, I think most texts are best summed up by Andrew Lloyd Webber's response to being questioned on the meaning of what was, at the time, his most recent musical.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Very entertaining. I really like your reading of the poem quite a bit.
I have to admit though, I'm most struck by the first paragraph where you sum up "author function" as the "Dylan effect". You're right on the money there I think. And, we're not alone in thinking this either; it was the entire subject of Todd Haynes is right there with us in thinking Bob Dylan is our greatest living example of author-function in play.
Nice work.
Oh, my God, I'm not alone. So happy right now. So very, very happy.
I have to say I like your post as well. Im sitting here debating which question to do, and as I enjoy/write poetry myself I think I will end up doing this question. I can relate to what your trying to say to both film/any english course I have taken throughout my schooling. Why do we read into these texts so must? If the author is alive did he intend for us to read it this way or that? Maybe we have to take it for exactly what it is depending on the genre of text that we read. Same goes for movies, with the most current example of the movie 300. I loved this film, and was quite surprised when I found out a huge lobbying group of persians found this movie offensive and protested seeing it and/or wanted to set the "facts" straight. I find this type of reaction ridiculous because I know for a fact I did not go their for a history lesson on the persian empire, nor did I think any less of persians after I viewed the film. So its quite interesting that these two chapters play on exactly what I have experienced lately and my whole life regarding the analyzing of texts/media. I have already written too much haha. but again great write up.
Matt
Post a Comment