Instead of expressing her gratitude for the assistance, Emily Dickinson wrote a\u00a0letter to the editor to complain that one of her verses had appeared in the\u00a0paper with a comma added to it that altered the meaning of the entire poem :<\/p>\n
\n\u201cLest you meet my Snake and suppose I deceive it was robbed of me\u2014defeated\u00a0too of the third line by the punctuation. The third and fourth were one.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
In case you fail to see her point, you are in good company. Even for Literature\u00a0Studies it seems to be a complete mystery what difference a little\u00a0improvement makes. An expert like Dickinson-biographer Judith Farr, for\u00a0instance, regards the additional replacement of the fourth line\u2019s dash by a full\u00a0stop as a part of the same problem, and only notices some minor effects on\u00a0texture. That, at least, follows from the way she is quoted by Wikipedia :\u00a0“snakes instantly notice you” ; Dickinson’s version captures the “breathless\u00a0immediacy” of the encounter ; and The Republican’s punctuation renders “her\u00a0lines more commonplace”.<\/p>\n
Apart from their specific value as scientific observations, Judith Farr\u2019s\u00a0comments make a perfect statement in general on the failure of Literature\u00a0Studies to explain even the simplest of poems aptly. Perfect because of JF\u2019s\u00a0exemplary demonstration of its blindness for vital clues on a silver plate.<\/p>\n
Because of this unfortunate eye condition, Literature Studies is apparently\u00a0still looking for researchers who read, independently from each other, exactly\u00a0the same in a work of literature. This, even more unfortunate, is in science the\u00a0obligate condition to regard any observation as reliable. Which implies that\u00a0Literature Studies has failed to develop a scientifically sound method of text\u00a0interpretation. The survey on developments in methods and research traditions\u00a0that is at this point supposed to follow, can therefore restrict itself to the\u00a0conclusion that the whole lot is best dropped into the nearest paper bin.<\/p>\n
A rather extreme step. And for good measure Literature Studies has\u00a0converted want into virtue. And its literary criticism (text interpretation) into\u00a0a comparison of notes. It is in any case common practice to analyze a given\u00a0work of literature by comparing the various interpretations from earlier\u00a0research, and to combine their most trustworthy looking elements into a new\u00a0framework. In order to understand, as interested lays, the effect of the\u00a0punctuation on Dickinson\u2019s poem, we therefore better make the attempt to\u00a0find things out for ourselves.<\/p>\n
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Instead of expressing her gratitude for the assistance, Emily Dickinson wrote a\u00a0letter to the editor to complain that one of her verses had appeared in the\u00a0paper with a comma added to it that altered the meaning of the entire poem … Continue reading