Criticism...just because we want to.

Though William Wimsatt Jr. and Monroe Beardsley have a very full, rich essay about formalism and internal and external evidence for meaning, and three realms in which to find meaning...I would just like to discuss one statement, because a lightbulb went off when I read it.

"The poem is not the critic's own and not the author's (it is detached from the author at birth and goes about the world beyond his power to intend about it or control it). The poem belongs to the public" (1376).

In terms of criticism, I think you can discuss a poem in whatever realm you desire (realm meaning solely the poem, or from the perspective of the poet, or what the poet intended, ect.) and still have it be contructive/analytical. To me, criticism should not be bound by absolute laws, but should focus on the relationships within the world of the poem. Wimsatt and Beardsley say that the poem belongs to the public, but is it not also important how the poem was formed and how the poem lies in and of itself? Yes, an author wrote the poem and that is not deniable. Yes, that author had a life. Maybe, perhaps, such and such an experience had an impact on such and such a poem, but that does not mean that it ultimately did.

For example, when we read the poem about the masks in class, some people were not influenced by the knowledge that the author was an African American, and others were influenced by that knowledge. If a reader wants to know about the author, research is available for that purpose, but if a reader believes that background knowledge will negatively influence that poem's effect on the reader, it is the reader's choice whether to engage in this knowledge or not. No one tells a reader "you must know how the author's life influenced her choice of writing." We research for one reason: we are curious. If we are not curious we need not research.