Who Is Ozymandias?: And other Puzzles in Poetry [Hardcover]

Fuller's puzzles are mostly personal issues and not questions central to the ongoing importance of particular poems no matter how much research he has done in order to support an argument that they are somehow integral to the relationship between the reader and the poem: and thusly at the root of poetry.

A good poem should seed discussion and defy investigative victory, though not discourage the act of investigation. It should not have one answer like a riddle or a puzzle. Yet Fuller, here in 2011, seems to think that the poet can only have meant one thing.

Fuller does provide good common sense in his assessment of purposeful obscurity and mistaken, or unlearned, references and he is unafraid to offer a less than neutral opinion of poets who have bullied their way to undeserved reputations. (His opinion, not mine.) But his problem with James Merrill, for example, is not supported with any textual examples. Fuller finds the idea preposterous that the "Changing Light at Sandover" was dictated through a ouija board and goes so far as to affirm this notion by citing an interview given by Merrill in which the poet claims he did little more than transcribe the text from the dead. Well, it seems, since we cannot interview the dead or reference their notebooks and drafts, we cannot trust to read them.

Really? I cannot argue with anyone who finds it impossible to suspend their belief and willingly enter Merrill's long poem but I will not bother to argue with someone who cannot read the poem because it was dictated through a ouija board.

I knew I was in trouble in the early going of this book when Fuller thinly vieled his dismissive attitude to Paul Muldoon's vastly superior ability to creatively unpack a poem with "Such observations do, to a degree, help the reader a little with the ludic practises of Muldoon's own poetry, but they do not solve any of the puzzles in Arnold's poem." (35)

"Observations" suggests commentary made on the sidelines by the uninvolved. It connotes amateurish abilities at best. "Ludic", meaning playful, is another belittling sentiment especially when you contrast it with the imporant work of solving the puzzle in Arnold's poem. Of course, the problem here, and throughout the book, is there is no puzzle in Arnold's poem. Only Fuller's insistence that there is one way of reading it.

Fuller insists on relying upon the poet for further proof of a poem's meaning. Interviews (such as the Merrill interview) and previous drafts of the poem become prime pieces of evidence to prove Fuller's puzzle solution to be definitive. I cannot imagine two worse sources of proof and I tried.

Why would any poet truthfully explain a poem they wrote when the point is for you to read it? And, as with the example of Merrill, if a prime component to your reading the poem requires you to accept a certain setting, or suspend a certain belief, why would that poet then suggest anything to jeporadize your ability to do so?

Interviewer: Did you really speak to the dead in order to compose "The Changing Light at Sandover", approximately 600 pages of poetry?

Merrill: No, I made it all up. But read it anyways because it is really good.

Fuller uses Arnold's "On Dover Beach", again, as an example to illustrate how sometimes the poet as craftsman sacrafices meaning to achieve an effect, in this care rhyme.(121) The puzzle in this case here is the presence, or choice, of the word girdle. Fuller does an excellent job of close reading to support his solving of the puzzle and, interestingly, does not need to go outside the poem to achieve this. But the point remains, sometimes the craftsman in the poet undermines the story teller or moralist in the poet.

It is speciouness to go back to an earlier draft of a poem, or dig through a poet's notebook, to define the meaning of a poem. Lines and whole stanzas may likely be mere place holders in a draft. And, as Fuller admits in the case of his investigation of Auden's Merlin, (137-143) he cannot even be sure he is correctly deciphering Auden's handwriting! Fuller does not claim to have solved this puzzle yet but the implication remains that puzzles have only one solution.

There is no doubt that Fuller is an excellent academic detective and his contribution to the readings of the poems he puzzles out are of value. Unfortunately, his attitude toward reading poetry and sniping at those who differ in their approach is not only restrictive and unpleasant but anachronistic.