Post 1 - Brandon Arnold - "My Last Duchess"

My initial ranking of the categories did change after I read the poem. There were only two that stayed the same in both rankings. One of the ones that stayed the same was “authorial content” which I ranked first. I felt that the whole objective of what we were doing was to figure out the message the author is trying to communicate; therefore, what the author is trying to say is the most important part. All the other choices to me seemed like ways of achieving that. My initial ranking for “contemporary cultural context was” was fourth, but I moved it to second after reading. Now I know that this is useless in terms of new criticism; however at the time I thought that it would give clues to meaning of the poem.  The second one that stayed the same was “modern cultural context which I ranked seventh. I ranked this one low, because I felt that since the poem was so old that modern cultural context would not have much relevance in terms of defining the author’s direct meaning. I ranked “scholarly context” second before reading and sixth after reading it. I think all this can do is help you brainstorm ideas for your own interpretation of the text, therefore, it is neither important or necessary to my argument. “A clear understanding of vocabulary, including possible etymology of words” was ranked fifth before reading and third after reading. After reading the poem, I realized that without being able to understand all the words, the message of any text will fail to be delivered and interpretation is impossible. “My Last Duchess” was filled with old English that I could not understand and made me come to that conclusion. “An understanding of traditional literary elements like characterization, symbolism, irony, setting, point of view, and narration among others” was initially ranked sixth and fourth after reading. These are the useful focal points that you can pin point and use to interpret the authors meaning, so this one is quite important. I ranked “personal beliefs/values/experiences was ranked eighth before reading and fifth after. I think that a person’s personal beliefs and emotional response is insignificant in interpreting the authors meaning. I feel it would only work if everyone thinks the same way. Since no one does, emotions and values varies so much, I feel like all the interpretations will be different: and only by chance will someone’s values allow the intended response to the text the author intended. “Author’s  beliefs/values/personal experience-biographical information- was ranked third before reading and eighth after reading; however, thinking about it now, I think that this is a very effective way of finding out an author’s motivations and ultimately the meaning of his intended message: just not in new criticism. I would describe myself as a very logical person, so I am looking forward to intrinsic evaluation. As a literary critic, for that reason, I see myself being into new criticism style evaluator of texts.