Analyzing and Interpreting Literature / Unit 7 AIL 0647 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Trap: The Conventional Meaning
Captions available
The idea
A rose conventionally means love, so an option saying so will attract. Blake's rose is sick and invaded, and the conventional meaning is what the poem is working against. Read the symbol as this passage uses it rather than as the tradition uses it.
In practice
Read the symbol as used here.
Where people slip
Convention is a distractor, not evidence.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Builds on
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