Interpreting the meaning

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Interpreting haiku

The poet writes a poem
but the reader completes it with his own interpretation,
depending on his own life experience, psychological situation and cultural background.

This might bring surprizing interpretaions to a haiku,
especially when written with ambiguity or as a riddle to start with.

But we must also beware, haiku is not just another Rohrschach test, free to paste any interpretation on it.


The word "Christmas" will bring different forms of interpretation for someone brought up in a Christian environment and someone who has no common pool of such memories.

Christmas, Weihnachten ... KIGO


Sakura, the Cherry blossoms, will certainly bring different interpretations from a reader in Japan and one in another country.


. Crosscultural Musings



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FRAGMENT AND PHRASE THEORY

Occasionally a haiku is written that is so full of possible divisions into what is the fragment or the phrase that writing it in one line is the only way that offers the reader the complete freedom to find the breaks.
And with each new arrangement the meaning of the poem varies.



Another Attempt To Define Haiku

In Japanese haiku pronouns (he, she, it, they, them, you, me etc.) are rarely explicit so the poem has an air of ambiguity -- more variations are possible for the reader.

source : Jane Reichhold


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another way to put it :

Intention is between the poet and the poem;
meaning is between the poem and the reader.


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quote
Even More Mood:
Wabi, Sabi, Empty
BY Paul Watsky


home for Christmas:
my childhood desk drawer
empty

Michael D. Welch


Xmas trumps the wabi-sabi spirit, and the poem steers us towards themes of retributive justice by means of the distinctly occidental allusion to an empty Xmas stocking.
The speaker implies that he experiences whatever caused the drawer to become empty as a punishment. Do you smile at the irony, laugh at the poet’s predicament, or sigh nostalgically? Everything depends on your own associative tendencies.
But that word empty, redolent of the void, really is full—of possibilities.

Read a discussion about this interpretation:
source : THF, Headset ((3))


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Found on the Way


Occam's razor (or Ockham's razor),
is the meta-theoretical principle that "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity" (entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem) and the conclusion thereof, that the simplest solution is usually the correct one.



The principle is attributed to 14th-century English logician, theologian and Franciscan friar, William of Ockham. Occam's razor may be alternatively phrased as pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate ("plurality should not be posited without necessity").

The principle is often expressed in Latin as the lex parsimoniae (translating to the law of parsimony, law of economy or law of succinctness). When competing hypotheses are equal in other respects, the principle recommends selection of the hypothesis that introduces the fewest assumptions and postulates the fewest entities while still sufficiently answering the question. It is in this sense that Occam's razor is usually understood.

To quote Isaac Newton,
"We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances. Therefore, to the same natural effects we must, so far as possible, assign the same causes."

In science, Occam’s razor is used as a heuristic (rule of thumb) to guide scientists in the development of theoretical models rather than as an arbiter between published models.

The other things in question are the evidential support for the theory.
Therefore, according to the principle, a simpler but less correct theory should not be preferred over a more complex but more correct one.
It is this fact which gives the lie to the common misinterpretation of Occam's Razor that "the simplest" one is usually the correct one.


Lloyd Morgan's Canon:
"In no case is an animal activity to be interpreted in terms of higher psychological processes, if it can be fairly interpreted in terms of processes which stand lower in the scale of psychological evolution and development" .
(Morgan 1903)

©　More in the WIKIPEDIA !


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Haiku, a Wordless Poem


. Haiku Theory Archives 　


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