William writes:
"The use of the word ambiguity in art, esp. poetry, is to call attention to
THE MULTIPLE INTERPRETATIONS EVOKED by an image or allusion, phrase, or word.
It does not specify vagueness. While the word ambiguity can be properly
used to denote vagueness, in poetry it simply means many, as with layers. THE
ARGUMENTS BELOW MISS THAT POINT. (Stresses are mine. -- Cheerskep)
WC"
I can't ask readers to read again something I've written -- unless they are
commenting on it. So I do ask William to read again my last message because it
says exactly the opposite of what he seems to think it does. I wrote:
"Certainly if anyone thinks any work of art, or any
> utterance at all, is
> "perfectly clear" he is failing to recognize
> ambiguity in this sense: He
> doesn't
> realize NO TWO VIEWERS CONTEMPLATING THE SAME WORK WILL BE ENTERTAINING THE
EXACT SAME NOTION."
William does not describe what he has in mind with 'vague'.
What most people have in mind is perhaps conveyed by such words as these:
Indistinct, imprecise, dark, lacking clear outline or borders. These notions
were
not what I had in mind in my last posting, and that's why I did not use
'vague' at all in that posting.
I explicitly conveyed that there are times in my work when I wanted viewers
to entertain different possible interpretations of what they've just seen or
heard.
Perhaps I confused William with my assertion that both clarity and ambiguity
are a matter of degree. All lines are to a degree ambiguous. The writer can
never fully prevent lines from occasioning interpretations alien to his
intentions, but with effort he can cut down on their likely number. I should
have made
clearer that what I also had in mind was the relative frequency of ambiguous
lines compared to those when I want viewers to have no doubt about a "fact" in
the storyline. Some playwrights, like Pinter, have a much higher percent of
intentionally ambiguous lines than I ever do.
William continues to dismay by how infrequently his general disgruntlement
allows him to cite something he agrees with. Psychotherapists talk about a
patient-type they term a "grievance collector", and they try to point out to
those
patients the various ways that conduct hurts them in the end.
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