Famous Poet Question

March 17th, 2010
  • What famous poet when asked by a fan of his whether or not a couple lines of one of his poems meant what they thought it did, answered that if that is not what I meant when I wrote it, I mean that now?


  • Hi aaronl, After searching for some time now, the closest I could come to any similiarity to this is the following: "The point made by the old and worn joke that makes someone saying "I won't know what I have written until I've read it, will I?" comes to mind, a more pertinent comment could perhaps be "I don't know exactly what I meant until I have rewritten it". When asked about what he meant to say in this or that work of his, the novelist and poet used to answer: "I meant what I wrote". But he also is recorded to have commented upon the papers of a conference on his writings, that he had never before thought of many of the meanings now attributed to his works. Such a comment is not necessarily ironic, I should rather think it refers to a common experience for many a writer: the text not only takes on new meanings or loses some of its old meanings as the world changes around the text, but it also unfolds new kinds of possible meanings - or even new kinds of meaninglessness." Hopefully another researcher will have better luck. Regards, rainbow~







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