Poetry interpretation
Any systematic, comprehension- oriented occupation with lyrical texts can be described as a poem interpretation in the broader sense . The Frankfurt anthology is an important collection of poetry interpretations by German-speaking authors .
Goal and starting points
The aim of the poem interpretation is usually to develop the aesthetic and cognitive content of a poem or lyrical text / text fragment from its formal and stylistic properties with recourse to background knowledge about the author , the intended audience and the historical embedding. The method for interpreting poems does not exist; Rather, it is now agreed that different interpretive approaches are legitimate and stand side by side on an equal footing.
Interpretation approaches (examples)
For example there is
- production-oriented approaches to interpretation: they attribute text features to biographical and individual psychological aspects of the author or to historical and political factors, i. H. on the circumstances of the text production.
- work immanent interpretive approaches: they consider the work of art as autonomous and removed from its production conditions. Central here is the aesthetic effect of the text, which affects the reader (understood in an abstract and idealized way) . Background knowledge about the author or the time circumstances of the work only plays a role as a corrective; however, it is not seen as constitutive for a successful interpretation.
- Effect- oriented approaches: they either make the historical reception effect of the work the starting point for the interpretation or they focus on the multitude of possible interpretations in terms of reception aesthetics.
- inductive approach: starts from the smallest observations and gradually expands to the whole
- Deductive approach: one makes assertions, assumptions and theses about the overall poem and proves or rejects them with examples
Web links
- Hans-Dieter Gelfert : Roadmap for a successful poem interpretation (last accessed on November 6, 2012)
- Notes on interpretation of (ancient) poetry (last accessed on November 6, 2012)
- Poetry analysis as a didactic problem. Is there an alternative to form-content interpretation? (PDF; 1.2 MB)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Interpretation of poems (last accessed on November 6, 2012)