When I was in high school the English teachers would explain literature to us. They’d make big tables of symbols and the corresponding meaning of each symbol.

“Blue enamel sky” = Nature’s indifference to man’s plight. And so on.

I’d sit there wondering why Stephen Crane didn’t just write an essay and say what he meant.

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People used to love poetry the way people now love music. They weren’t “appreciating” it. Poetry moved them.

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An explained metaphor or symbol is as effective as an explained joke. But this is how metaphor and symbol are taught to us. A student is left with the impression that something has to be concrete and objective to matter to us.

Could it be that the table-of-symbols approach to teaching literature is some sort of inoculation against religious experience?

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(Brand is the poetry of our time.)

(Brand is not a replacement for full-fledged poetry, but a spark of something.)