Interpretation Of Poetry Quotes & Sayings

A play's an interpretation. It is not a report. And that is the beginning of its poetry because, in order to interpret, you have to distort toward a symbolic construction of what happened, and as that distortion takes place, you begin to leave out and overemphasize and consequently deliver up life as a unity rather than as a chaos, and any such attempt, the more intense it is, the more poetic it becomes. — Arthur Miller

Old English poetry is characterised by a number of poetic tropes which enable a writer to describe things indirectly and which require a reader imaginatively to construct their meaning. The most widespread of these figurative descriptions are what are known as kennings. Kennings often occur in compounds: for example, hronrad (whale-road) or swanrad (swan- road) meaning 'the sea'; banhus (bone-house) meaning the 'human body'. Some kennings involve borrowing or inventing words; others appear to be chosen to meet the alliterative requirement of a poetic line, and as a result some kennings are difficult to decode, leading to disputes in critical interpretation. But kennings do allow more abstract concepts to be communicated by using more familiar words: for example, God is often described as moncynnes weard ('guardian of mankind'). — Ronald Carter

When we do get a little time off, I tend to watch movies, go to dinners, and keep it low-key. — Nina Dobrev

What did make me a little uneasy was that I often caught sight of him studying me in my periphery. I replayed what I'd said over and over in my mind, trying to figure out if there'd been anything to warrant such attention. — Richelle Mead

God forgives, the Finns do not.' This — Vesa Nenye

The reason I often say, for me, photography is analogous to poetry, for my kind of work more so than journalism, is because it's so open to interpretation. And I'm very happy having different interpretations of it. — Alec Soth

Look to the past to help create the future. Look to science and to poetry. Combine innovation and interpretation. We need the best of both. And it is universities that best provide them. — Drew Gilpin Faust

Great oaks grow from little acorns. He has a green thumb. He has green fingers. He's sowing his wild oats. Here Ceres' gifts in waving prospect stand, And nodding tempt the joyful reaper's hand. — Alexander Pope

The greatest truth must be recognition that in every man, in every child is the potential for greatness. — Robert Kennedy

Well, my dads are always saying I'm the handsome one in the family, but it's always nice to hear a girl say it, too. Especially if she's under fifty. — Paula Stokes

Literature is always something - it is either story or poetry, ideally both. That is, you always know what it is and even if the interpretation is not available, the experience of language is. — Aleksandar Hemon

You've often heard me say - perhaps too often - that poetry is what is lost in translation. It is also what is lost in interpretation. That little poem means just what it says and it says what it means, nothing less but nothing more. — Robert Frost

Poetry is something in-between the dream and its interpretation. — Lou Andreas-Salome

Because, in fact, women, feminists, do read my poetry, and they read it often with the power of their political interpretation. I don't care; that's what poetry is supposed to do. — Diane Wakoski

Nothing is inanimate; what is the rest is our interpretation. — Dejan Stojanovic

Stopgaps do belong to the internal economy of the form, since the Whole requires them, even if only in a subordinate position ... The stopgap Luigi Paryson's 'zeppa' accepts its own banality, because without the speed that the banal allows up, it would slow up a passage that is crucial for the outcome of the work and its interpretation. — Umberto Eco

I am bothered by poems I don't understand. — Joyce Rachelle

The strange, wonderful stories of Doctor Olaf van Schuler's Brain introduce us to the tremendously gifted Kirsten Menger-Anderson, a writer whose subject is nothing less than the diagnosis and cure of the human malady. We follow twelve generations of New York City's Steenwycks family through their forays into phrenology, mesmerism, radium therapy and similar misadventures, a historically rich narrative that Menger-Anderson delivers in striking, elegant prose and with a sure eye for detail. This is a remarkable debut by a writer to watch. — Ben Fountain

Talking is always a good idea. There's no harm in keeping lines of communication open. — Brian Reynolds Myers

Poetry has been able to function quite directly as human interpretation of the raw, loose universe. It is a mixture, if you will, of journalism and metaphysics, or of science and religion. — Annie Dillard

I would rather ride on the far distant coattails of established authors than to follow the inexperienced whose whims change with the direction of the wind. — Peggy Randall-Martin

Your life is a poetry, it just needs some interpretation. — Debasish Mridha

Sometimes poets expect me to think far deeper than I'm willing to dig. — Richelle E. Goodrich

School presents daily exercises in dis-association. It forces unwelcome associations on most of its prisoners. It sets petty, meaningless competitions in motion on a daily basis, pitting potential associates against one another in contests for praise and other worthless prizes. — John Taylor Gatto

Well," the Marsh King pursed his beak politely, "at any rate, your manliness need only last for a relatively brief period. I have already discussed this in detail with some of the lower Stars - white dwarfs and the like. I shall bundle you up tight as a mitten in a human skin until," and here he cleared his long blue throat dramatically, "the Virgin is devoured, the sea turns to gold, and the saints migrate west on the wings of henless eggs."
"In the Stars' name, what does that mean?" I gasped.
"I haven't the faintest idea! Isn't it marvelous? Oracles always have the best poetry! I only repeated what I was told - it is rather rude of you to expect magic, prophecy, and interpretation. That's asking quite a lot, even from a King. — Catherynne M Valente

Poetry is what is lost in translation. It is also what is lost in interpretation. — Robert Frost

Poetry's magic lies in the imagery which satifies even without interpretation..it is accepted as easily as it was created. — Robert Bridges

We will cut programs, we will try to rein in the size of the bureaucracy. We will bring federal pay scales that have become so exaggerated into line with market rates. — Eric Cantor

Only the familiar transformed by genius is truly great. — Boris Pasternak

Man is aware; he perceives and interprets the world around him. When he uses logic as a tool for interpretation, it becomes science; when he uses feelings for interpretation, it becomes poetry; when he takes a longer view of his observations, it becomes wisdom. — Avtarjeet Singh Dhanjal

Art's effect is due to the tension resulting from the clash of the collocation of elements of two (or more) systems of interpretation. This conflict has the function of breaking down automatism of perception and occurs simultaneously on the many levels of a work of art ... All levels may carry meaning. — Yuri Lotman

Science has discovered that, like any work of literature, the human genome is a text in need of commentary, for what Eliot said of poetry is also true of DNA: 'all meanings depend on the key of interpretation.' What makes us human, and what makes each of us his or her own human, is not simply the genes that we have buried into our base pairs, but how our cells, in dialogue with our environment, feed back to our DNA, changing the way we read ourselves. Life is a dialectic. — Jonah Lehrer

The only way to escape fear is to trample it beneath your feet. — Nadia Comaneci

There are things that you can do today that, years ago, there was nothing. The community today needs to know that with MRI and the current medications the view is good. — Teri Garr

Paradoxically, the simpler poetry is, the more difficult it becomes for a critic to discuss intelligently. Trained to explicate, the critic often loses the ability to evaluate literature outside the critical act. A work is good only in proportion to the richness and complexity of interpretations it provokes. — Dana Gioia

The arts which need interpretation are the arts of time
music and poetry
and not the arts of space
sculpture and painting. — Salvador De Madariaga