[Milton-L] Satan in Paradise Regained/Reading & MISreading

[Alberto Cacicedo]

I agree entirely with the proposition that meaning is a negotiation  
between sender and receiver, the terms Robert Scholes uses in his book  
on Structuralism in Literature.  In regards to Roethke's poem, I thank  
Carol Barton for the link to the audio file, which I'd never heard.  I  
wonder, however, whether the antithetical readings of males and  
females is simply a matter of the auditor's sex, or whether the  
antithesis is in the poem itself, as it were.  My male ears are sharp  
enough to hear the mother's dismay, and perhaps sympathize but not  
agree with it, but not sharp enough to hear the author's preference  
for her dismay or the child's feminine-rhyme-conveyed sense of thrill  
and adventure.   I would therefore agree with the point expressed by  
several contributors to this thread, that not every interpretation can  
be sustained, although each reader is certainly free to interpret as  
he or she wants to.  In the case of "My Papa's Waltz," I guess I'd say  
that both the male and the female perspectives expressed in Prof.  
Barton's post are possible, but both are "wrong" because the poem  
"really" reflects the antithetical ways that a single experience can  
be understood.

Al Cacicedo

On Nov 19, 2008, at 11:10 AM, James Rovira wrote:

> I think the assertion that "speech belongs ultimately and uniquely  
> to the speaker" is terribly incorrect -- the opposite of the truth,  
> in fact.  That's only true if the speaker is speaking a language  
> that he or she invented, and spoken only by him or her.  Speech is a  
> social product.  We learn it from others, it is already in place  
> when we learn it, and we can only make slight modifications to it  
> and remain intelligible.  Case in point: Finnegans Wake.
>
> We need to distinguish between an author's speech and an author's  
> intent for that speech.  An author owns his or her intent, but that  
> does not mean the author owns equally all linguistically legitimate  
> possible meanings of his or her speech, even if we limit these  
> possibilities to the author's own time and place.  "What PL means"  
> and "What Milton intended to say in PL (or any of its given  
> passages)" are two different questions -- with overlapping answers.   
> To say that theology is irrelevant to PL is to offer a specific  
> possibility or range of possibilities for that text.  To say that  
> theology was irrelevant to Milton as he wrote PL is simply to  
> demonstrate one's ignorance.
>
> Jim R
>
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