Illogical Paradox

AP English Literature will kill me.

This course is pretty much a slap in the face to anybody who loves reading and writing. Rather than encouraging creativity and originality for the interpretation of literature, whichever smart-asses designed this course and test decided that it’s a good idea to advocate that there is only ONE possible meaning for any poem or prose passage.

The guy who is responsible for our behemoth of a textbook, Laurence Perrine, has some very strict views on poetry. We read an essay of his called The Nature of Proof in the Interpretation of Poetry, which (as you can probably tell by the title) basically advocates an almost-mathematical approach to figuring out a poem’s meaning and proving to others that you are correct and they are stupid if they found a different meaning.

For instance, in that essay, Perrine takes an untitled poem by Emily Dickinson:

Where ships of purple gently toss
On seas of daffodil,
Fantastic sailors mingle,
And then—the wharf is still.

What do you think the poem is talking about?