Troublemaking Interpretations of Horation Ode Essay -- Horation Ode

Troublemaking Interpretations of Horation Ode There exists debate of how one is to read Marvells Horation Ode, One of the most unexamined issues in the three tastes, yet one which seems to be a presupposition for most of the telephone line that goes on between both parties, is Brookss careful caveat early in his essay that his project is not to reveal triumphantly that what it Marvells poem really says is something quite debate to what we have supposed it to be saying (Ode 323). For Bush, what the poem is supposed to have said is key, for his argument will rest around such suppositions and commonalities, or color-blind readings as he might call it and among his final arguments will be that Marvells poem means what it says (348), which will be arrived at by looking at the poem in its common and natural sense(341). But Brooks is not necessarily strict in sticking to traditional interpretation, so it is challenging he would begin with what we might call at this point an interpreta tional warning label to insure that the reader does not misinterpret him and think that he is essay to merely find a new interpretation for an old poem. While he will later argue that the New Critic is indeed in debt to the historicist, and we might accept this initial warning as a part of that debt to proper norms (326), it is with other interests in mind that Brooks ends his Notes on the Limits ofHistory and the Limits of Criticism. Invoking Matthew Arnold, Brooks concludes his essay dealing with Leslie Fielders call to interpret literature in relation to the rest of mans concerns (qtd. in Limits 354). To this, Brooks is in hearty agreement (Limits 354), and with this ending it is clear that in that respect are ... ...es so many of his noviceisms of Brooks in terms of how he looks for desperate solutions that stray from a common sense reading of the poem. This idea that the figure of critic that Brooks advocates makes trouble for the type of interpretation established by a h istorical reading of the poem raises such questions as the role of the critic in a society, and whether this critic is obliged to make trouble or not, and who is to be the focus of his troublemaking energies. Works Cited Brooks, Cleanth. Criticism and Literary History Marvells Horation Ode. Class exit ENG 415. April 9th, 1996. Notes on the Limits ofHistory and the Limits of Criticism. Class Handout ENG 415 April 9th, 1996. Bush, Douglas. Marvells Horation Ode. Class Handout ENG 415. April 9th, 1996. Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. New York Routledge, 1990.