exactly. The professor was going on and on about how depressing the poem was and how it was all about despair. He read the lines about how one must have a mind of winter, etc. etc. to not hear misery in the sound of the wind as affirming the universality of despair -- as in anyone who is human feels this way. I read it as something to strive toward -- to have a mind of winter -- to truly *see* the scene as it is, and not through the interpretive lens of human culture -- to let go of the self, and become part of the scene, not separate from it -- "nothing himself, beholds / Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is" -- ie. not to see misery, because it is not there, but to see the Nothing that is . . .
Ok, so I'm waxing poetical, but that's how I read the poem, and I *loved* it, and I was so ready to talk all about it, and then I got to class and the prof was absolutely dumbfounded that anyone could see it that way.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2004-10-26 06:05 pm (UTC)Ok, so I'm waxing poetical, but that's how I read the poem, and I *loved* it, and I was so ready to talk all about it, and then I got to class and the prof was absolutely dumbfounded that anyone could see it that way.