Critical Approaches For Interpreting Literature

English 1080                                                                                                                                                        Jan 13/13

 All the approaches MaMahan mentions seem to be appealing to me. It would be hard to pick one certain approach for all pieces of literature. I think that some poems or stories can be looked at by one approach while another story or poem would be better looked at by a different approach. With that saying reader response is the approach that I picked to analyze the poem, “My Mistress’ Eyes Are Nothing Like The Sun” by William Shakespeare.  I believe that William Shakespeare is expressing his feeling for his mistress and for the relationship they share.  I believe that different readers will react to this poem in a different way, each reader can make sense of the poem in the own way., for example when Shakespeare writes,” My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;” one reader may think that Shakespeare is just telling us that his mistress has pink lips. Another reader may think that Shakespeare is using metaphors to tell the reader about how he feels about his mistress. Also different readers are going to think of the name he uses to talk about the woman differently. One reader may think  that mistress is just a word to describe a woman that you are in a sexual and emotional relationship with, another reader may think that the word mistress is used to describe a woman who a man is having an affair with, or the second woman.  Depending which way you would describe the word mistress can change the outlook on this poem tremendously. I believe the writer is describing the way he feels about his relationship with his “mistress” and I believe that is why he is describing the way she looks in an unflattering manner, for example when he writes, “ If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.”  I also believe that in spite of this he still loves her because he writes,”and yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare as any she belied with false compare.” This is just what I got out of reading this poem. A different reader probably would have got a different analogy after they read it. That’s why reader response is my favorite approach for the poem, “My mistress eyes are nothing like the sun.”