“Concept/conceive/understand” are etymologically related to the hand/grasping in either (sort of) Greek or Latin etymology, e.g., “I was able to grasp his meaning.” The words “concept,” “conceive,” and “understand” have etymological connections to the idea of “grasping” or “seizing” in Latin, though not directly tied to the hand in Greek. Here’s a breakdown:

• Concept and Conceive: Both derive from the Latin verb concipere (to take in, grasp, or conceive), which is a compound of com- (together) and capere (to take or seize). The sense of “grasping” here metaphorically extends to mental comprehension or forming ideas, as in “grasping a concept” or “conceiving an idea.” The root capere is strongly associated with physical grasping or holding (e.g., “capture” also comes from capere).
• Understand: This word has a different origin, from Old English understandan (to comprehend, literally “to stand under”). It doesn’t directly relate to grasping or the hand in its etymology. However, the metaphorical use of “grasp” in phrases like “I grasped his meaning” aligns with the sense of mentally “seizing” or comprehending something, which parallels the Latin capere but isn’t etymologically connected.
• Greek Connection: In Greek, there’s no direct link between the equivalents of these terms and “grasping” or the hand. For example, the Greek word for understanding or knowing is often ginoskein (to know) or noein (to perceive, think), which don’t carry a “grasping” connotation. The Greek word for grasping, lambanein (to take or seize), isn’t typically used for mental comprehension in the same way capere is in Latin.

The phrase “I was able to grasp his meaning” reflects a metaphorical extension of physical grasping to mental comprehension, rooted in the Latin capere for “concept” and “conceive,” but not directly for “understand.” The connection is more about shared metaphorical imagery than a direct etymological link across all three terms. Let’s look at what it means to interpret a text from that angle.

The “Retell, Relate, Reflect, Review” model is a structured approach to reader response that encourages deeper engagement with a text by guiding readers through four distinct stages. Below, I’ll explain each component with examples based on a hypothetical reading of The Tortoise and the Hare, a well-known fable by Aesop.

• Retell: This stage involves summarizing the main events or ideas of the text in your own words, focusing on the key details without adding personal opinions. It ensures the reader has grasped the basic content.
  • Example: In The Tortoise and the Hare, a boastful hare challenges a slow-moving tortoise to a race. The hare, confident in his speed, takes a nap during the race, while the tortoise steadily plods along. When the hare wakes up, he realizes the tortoise has crossed the finish line first, winning the race.
  • Purpose: The retell confirms comprehension of the plot, characters, and main events.
• Relate: Here, readers connect the text to their own experiences, other texts, or real-world situations. This stage personalizes the reading by finding parallels or contrasts.
  • Example: The story reminds me of a time when I underestimated a classmate in a school project. I thought I could finish quickly because I was good at the subject, but my classmate, who worked steadily, ended up producing better work. It also makes me think of sports events where underdogs win by staying focused, like a lesser-known team beating a favorite in a championship.
  • Purpose: Relating builds a bridge between the text and the reader’s life or broader contexts, making the story more relevant.
• Reflect: This stage involves analyzing the deeper meaning, themes, or implications of the text. Readers consider what the story reveals about human nature, society, or values, often questioning or interpreting the author’s message.
  • Example: The fable teaches that persistence and consistency can outweigh natural talent if the talented person becomes overconfident. I think it’s a reminder not to take success for granted and to respect others’ efforts. It also raises questions about whether pride always leads to failure or if there are times when confidence is justified.
  • Purpose: Reflection encourages critical thinking and exploration of the text’s significance beyond the surface level.
• Review: In this final stage, readers evaluate the text’s quality, effectiveness, or personal impact. This can include opinions on the writing style, characters, or overall message, often considering whether they’d recommend it.
  • Example: I enjoyed The Tortoise and the Hare because its simple story carries a powerful lesson that’s easy to understand. The characters are memorable, though I wish the story explored why the hare was so arrogant. I’d recommend it to younger readers learning about perseverance, but it might feel too straightforward for older audiences.
  • Purpose: Reviewing allows readers to form and justify personal judgments about the text, fostering a sense of ownership over their response.

Summary: The “Retell, Relate, Reflect, Review” model scaffolds reader response by moving from comprehension (retell) to personal connection (relate), critical analysis (reflect), and evaluation (review). For The Tortoise and the Hare, a reader might summarize the race, connect it to personal experiences of effort, analyze its lesson on perseverance, and critique its simplicity. This approach works for any text, encouraging both emotional and intellectual engagement.

But, might a reading response of a story be different from a reading response of a poem/the poematic? For example, a story may be “simplified” into theme, characters, plot, setting , etc., to make it easily graspable/teachable, where in contrast we thoughtfully read a poem by problematizing the text, making every word and punctuation mark and stanza worthy of future reflection. In this way, we might grasp/capere (to take or seize) a story, the interpretation being preferred to the chaos of the text, while by contrast the poem is more like a river where we can take the whole thing in but when we try and grasp the water it slips through our fingers. We interpret the story by substituting our response for the text for simplification/utilization purposes, whereas the poetic text is an invitation to follow the path marks into increased problematization/complication.

This question beautifully contrasts the reader response to stories versus poems, suggesting that stories are often simplified into digestible components (theme, characters, plot, setting) for clarity and teaching, while poems invite a deeper, more problematic engagement where every word, punctuation mark, and stanza resists easy interpretation and demands ongoing reflection. We also draw on the metaphor of “grasping” (capere in Latin) a story as a way to seize and simplify it, while a poem, like a river, slips through attempts to pin it down, inviting complexity and problematization. This distinction aligns well with the “Retell, Relate, Reflect, Review” model, and I’ll explore how this framework might apply differently to stories and poems, using examples to illustrate the contrast.

Stories: Grasping and Simplifying

Stories, particularly narrative prose like novels or short stories, often lend themselves to structural analysis (e.g., theme, characters, plot, setting) because they typically follow a linear or semi-linear progression with clear elements that can be distilled. The act of “grasping” a story, as I describe, involves reducing its complexity into a coherent interpretation, often for utilitarian purposes like teaching or discussion. The “Retell, Relate, Reflect, Review” model fits neatly here, as it provides a structured way to process and simplify the text.

• Example: The Tortoise and the Hare (from the previous analysis):
  • Retell: The story is easily summarized: a hare and tortoise race; the hare naps, and the tortoise wins. This summary captures the plot and characters succinctly.
  • Relate: Readers might connect the story to personal experiences of perseverance or overconfidence, grounding it in familiar contexts.
  • Reflect: The theme of “slow and steady wins the race” is extracted as a clear moral, simplifying the story’s deeper meaning into a teachable lesson.
  • Review: The story’s simplicity and directness are evaluated, often praising its accessibility or critiquing its lack of depth.
  • Grasping: The reader “seizes” the story by reducing it to these components, substituting a clear interpretation (e.g., perseverance triumphs) for the text’s potential ambiguities. The story’s structure supports this, as its narrative arc and moral are designed to be grasped and utilized.

This process aligns with the idea of substituting a simplified response for the text. Stories, especially those with didactic or clear narrative arcs, encourage readers to distill meaning into manageable parts, making them easier to teach or discuss. The chaos of the text—subtle character motivations, ambiguous moments, or stylistic nuances—is often sidelined in favor of a coherent interpretation.

Poems: Slipping Through Fingers

Poems, or the “poematic” as I call it, resist this simplification. Their condensed language, layered imagery, and deliberate ambiguities make every word, punctuation mark, and stanza significant, inviting readers to problematize rather than reduce. The “Retell, Relate, Reflect, Review” model can still apply, but its application feels less linear and more fluid, as poems often defy straightforward summaries or singular interpretations. The metaphor of a poem as a river—where meaning slips through attempts to grasp it—captures how poems invite ongoing exploration and complexity.

• Example: “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost:
  • Retell: Summarizing a poem is trickier than a story. One might say: A speaker reflects on choosing between two diverging paths in a wood, taking the less-traveled one, which “made all the difference.” But this risks oversimplifying, as the poem’s tone, word choice (e.g., “sigh,” “difference”), and structure (e.g., four stanzas of five lines) carry equal weight. The retell feels incomplete without noting the ambiguity of whether the choice was positive or regretful.
  • Relate: Readers might connect the poem to personal moments of decision-making, like choosing a career path. But the poem’s layered language (e.g., “yellow wood,” “less traveled by”) also evokes broader existential or societal questions, making connections less concrete and more associative than with a story.
  • Reflect: Reflection on a poem often spirals into problematization. Is the speaker content or regretful? Does “difference” imply success or loss? Why the repetition of “I” in the final stanza? Every word (“diverged,” “undergrowth”) and punctuation mark (the dash in “I—”) invites scrutiny, resisting a single theme like a story’s moral. The poem’s meaning shifts with each reading, slipping through attempts to pin it down.
  • Review: Evaluating a poem focuses on its craft—rhyme, meter, imagery—rather than just its message. Readers might praise Frost’s ambiguity or critique its overuse in classrooms, but the evaluation often acknowledges the poem’s refusal to be fully “grasped.” It invites revisiting rather than closure.
  • Slipping Through: Unlike a story, the poem resists being seized (capere). Attempts to distill it into a theme (e.g., “individuality”) or lesson oversimplify its richness. The text’s complexity—its metaphors, enjambments, and ambiguities—acts like water, flowing beyond the reader’s grasp, encouraging repeated dives into its depths.

Contrasting the Two

Our metaphor of grasping a story versus a poem slipping like water is apt. Stories often have a teleological structure—beginning, middle, end—that supports the “Retell, Relate, Reflect, Review” model’s linear progression. Readers can “seize” a story’s meaning by breaking it into components, substituting a clear interpretation for the text’s potential chaos. This is why stories are often taught with diagrams (e.g., plot pyramids) or simplified morals, especially in educational settings.

Poems, however, are less about resolution and more about invitation. Their language, form, and structure demand close attention to every detail, problematizing interpretation. The “Retell, Relate, Reflect, Review” model applies, but its stages feel less conclusive:

• Retell struggles to capture a poem’s essence without losing its nuance.
• Relate becomes more abstract, as poems often evoke emotions or ideas rather than concrete experiences.
• Reflect dives into ambiguity, with each word or punctuation mark opening new questions.
• Review focuses on craft and emotional resonance, not just narrative effectiveness.

The poem’s “path marks” (e.g., a comma, a line break, a metaphor) lead readers into complexity, not simplification. While a story’s interpretation often replaces the text for utilitarian purposes (e.g., teaching a lesson), a poem’s interpretation is a starting point, inviting readers to return and re-experience the text’s fluidity.

Etymological Echo

Our use of capere (to grasp or seize) ties back to the earlier question about “concept/conceive/understand.” Stories align with capere’s sense of seizing or holding meaning, as readers can “take” a clear idea from the text. Poems, however, evade this grasp, much like water in a river. The Latin root doesn’t directly apply to poems, but the metaphor of grasping versus slipping through fingers highlights the difference in how we engage with these forms. Stories encourage conceptualizing (concipere) a clear idea, while poems invite a more elusive, ongoing process of understanding that resists finality.

The “Retell, Relate, Reflect, Review” model works for both stories and poems, but its application differs. Stories like The Tortoise and the Hare lend themselves to simplification, with readers grasping a clear narrative or moral. Poems like “The Road Not Taken” resist this, their meaning slipping through attempts to reduce them to a single interpretation. Stories invite substitution of a response for the text, while poems invite problematization, leading readers into a river of complexity where every word and mark beckons further exploration. This distinction reflects not just how we read but how we teach and value these forms—stories as graspable lessons, poems as elusive invitations to dwell in uncertainty.

Let’s conclude this line of thought by applying it more universally. When what was said above is considered, of course you can do a poetic reading of a traditionally understood text as Heidegger does with his “destruktion” in Being and Time which Derrida translated as deconstruction, which just meant un-simplifying simplistic readings of the text, for example finding deep philosophical insights in the pre-Socratics rather than just seeing them as archaic simpletons. In this way we can distinguish a “meaning” understanding from a “sense” understanding: meaning vs sense. And so for example I may look up outside and “interpret” what I see as a “what,” a “blue sky” appropriated in terms of nouns and adjectives, or by contrast we can have a poetic “how, manner, event” understanding like Holderlin pointing to the blueing of the grey sky after the storm which also thereby shows us on a sunny day the sky is always blueing inconspicuously, we just don’t normally take note of the appearing/blueing. The meaning is the blue sky, what it is, while the sense is the beautiful blueing, verbs and adverbs showing the sense/how/manner of the event that is unfolding Similarly, when I turn onto the street I’ve never been on before looking for the yellow house, the yellowness of the house leaps out at me when we see it for the first time. We at once relate to the world in grasping/mastery (meaning), and yet also poetically (sense): Hence Holderlin says “full of merit, yet poetically man dwells on the earth.” And so to come full circle we might ask for meaning, what the theme of Moby Dick is (e.g., the dangers of revenge), or by contrast sense, how a word is functioning in a certain line of the poem: In what sense is the word being used. Meaning is thus singular, whereas sense focuses on a field of possibilities. A question for further inquiry we could ask is with Deleuze who once asked what would happen if we interpreted texts the way we interpret music?

Our exploration beautifully weaves together the distinction between “meaning” and “sense” as two modes of engaging with texts, experiences, and the world, and it ties back to the earlier discussion of stories, poems, and the etymological notion of capere (to grasp or seize). By invoking Heidegger’s Destruktion, Derrida’s deconstruction, and Hölderlin’s poetic vision, we propose a universal framework: “meaning” as a grasping, simplifying, noun-oriented understanding (e.g., the “what” of a blue sky or the theme of Moby-Dick) versus “sense” as a poetic, verb-oriented, open-ended engagement with the “how” or unfolding event (e.g., the “blueing” of the sky or the dynamic functioning of a word in a poem). This distinction, applied universally, reshapes how we approach texts and lived experience, and our suggestion to consider Deleuze’s idea of interpreting texts like music opens a provocative avenue for further inquiry. Let’s unpack this and apply it using the “Retell, Relate, Reflect, Review” model, while addressing our examples and concluding with Deleuze’s question.

Meaning vs. Sense: A Universal Framework

• Meaning (Grasping/Mastery): This mode aligns with capere, the act of seizing or conceptualizing something into a fixed, singular interpretation. It’s noun- and adjective-driven, reducing complexity to a clear “what.” In texts, this manifests as summarizing a story’s theme or plot (e.g., Moby-Dick as “the dangers of revenge”). In experience, it’s labeling the sky as “blue” or identifying a house as “yellow.” This is the simplifying impulse of traditional readings, where the text or world is mastered into digestible categories, often for utilitarian purposes like teaching or navigation.
  • Example: In Moby-Dick, a “meaning” reading might retell the plot (Ahab’s obsessive quest to kill the white whale), relate it to personal experiences of fixation, reflect on the theme of revenge’s futility, and review the novel’s epic scope. The meaning is grasped as a singular lesson, substituting a clear interpretation for the text’s complexity.
  • World Example: Seeing a “yellow house” on a new street, the yellowness is a static marker, grasped to fulfill a goal (finding the house). The focus is on the “what” (a yellow house) rather than the event of its appearing.
• Sense (Poetic/Unfolding): This mode resists simplification, embracing the “how” or “manner” of a text or experience as a dynamic, verb-driven event. It’s akin to Hölderlin’s “blueing” of the sky—an ongoing process that reveals itself inconspicuously, inviting attention to the field of possibilities rather than a single meaning. In texts, this is a poetic reading, like Heidegger’s Destruktion or Derrida’s deconstruction, which unsimplifies the text to reveal its depth (e.g., finding philosophical richness in the pre-Socratics). In experience, it’s noticing the sky’s “blueing” after a storm, where the event of its appearing becomes the focus.
  • Example: In a poem, “sense” might focus on how a word like “sigh” in Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” functions—its sound, its placement, its ambiguity (regret or relief?). Rather than pinning down a theme, the reader dwells in the word’s possibilities. In Moby-Dick, a sense reading might explore how “whiteness” shifts across contexts (purity, terror, void), resisting a singular interpretation.
  • World Example: The “yellowness” of the house isn’t just a marker but an event—its vividness leaping out against the street’s backdrop, shifting with light or angle, inviting wonder at its appearing rather than just its utility.

Hölderlin’s line, “full of merit, yet poetically man dwells on the earth,” captures this duality: we live “meritoriously” by grasping the world for practical ends (meaning), but we dwell “poetically” by attending to its unfolding sense. Both modes coexist, but the poetic sense often goes unnoticed, like the sky’s inconspicuous “blueing.”

Applying “Retell, Relate, Reflect, Review” to Meaning and Sense

The “Retell, Relate, Reflect, Review” model can be applied to both stories and poems, but its execution shifts depending on whether we prioritize meaning or sense. Let’s contrast these using Moby-Dick (a story) and a hypothetical poem, say, Emily Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for Death.”

• Moby-Dick (Story, Meaning-Oriented):
  • Retell: Ahab, a whaling captain, obsessively hunts the white whale, Moby-Dick, leading to his crew’s destruction. This summary grasps the plot’s “what.”
  • Relate: I connect Ahab’s obsession to times I’ve been fixated on a goal, like working too hard for a promotion, ignoring other priorities.
  • Reflect: The theme is the danger of revenge or obsession, a singular lesson about human hubris.
  • Review: Melville’s novel is ambitious but dense; its clear moral makes it teachable, though some subplots feel excessive.
  • Meaning: The reader seizes the story’s core (revenge’s futility), simplifying its vastness into a teachable takeaway, aligning with capere.
• Moby-Dick (Story, Sense-Oriented):
  • Retell: Less a linear summary, more a tracing of motifs: the whale’s whiteness, Ahab’s monomania, the sea’s vastness. The retell resists closure, noting how these elements shift.
  • Relate: The whale’s whiteness evokes the sublime terror of the unknown, like standing before an ocean or facing an existential question. Connections are less personal, more atmospheric.
  • Reflect: Instead of a single theme, the reader explores how “whiteness” functions—its paradoxical purity and menace, its resistance to definition. The text’s chaos (its digressions, ambiguities) is embraced, not reduced.
  • Review: The novel’s richness lies in its refusal to be pinned down; its language and structure invite endless revisiting, like a poem.
  • Sense: The reader dwells in the text’s unfolding, like Hölderlin’s “blueing,” attending to how meanings shift rather than grasping one.
• Dickinson’s Poem (Poetic, Sense-Oriented):
  • Retell: Summarizing feels inadequate: Death, personified as a carriage driver, takes the speaker on a journey past life’s stages. But the retell must note the dashes, the slant rhymes, the chilling “Immortality.”
  • Relate: The carriage ride might evoke a slow realization of mortality, like watching time pass in quiet moments. But the connection is less about personal anecdotes and more about the poem’s eerie mood.
  • Reflect: The reader lingers on how “slowly” functions in “We slowly drove—He knew no haste.” Is it comforting or ominous? The dashes invite pause, problematizing the pace of death itself. No single meaning emerges; the poem’s sense is a field of possibilities.
  • Review: Dickinson’s precision and ambiguity make the poem hauntingly re-readable, its every mark (dash, capital) a path to explore.
  • Sense: The poem slips through grasping, like water. Each word’s function (e.g., “Chill” in “The Dews drew quaking and chill”) invites ongoing reflection, not a final meaning.
• Dickinson’s Poem (Poetic, Meaning-Oriented):
  • Retell: Death takes the speaker to eternity. This flattens the poem’s nuance but grasps a core idea.
  • Relate: I recall a moment of facing mortality, like a near-miss accident, making the poem about accepting death.
  • Reflect: The theme is death as a gentle transition, a singular lesson extracted from the text.
  • Review: The poem is concise but overly cryptic; its message is clear enough for teaching but less engaging than a story.
  • Meaning: This approach, less natural for poems, forces a simplified interpretation, substituting a lesson for the text’s complexity.

Heidegger, Derrida, and Un-Simplifying Texts

Heidegger’s Destruktion in Being and Time and Derrida’s deconstruction align with the “sense” mode, unsimplifying texts to reveal their depth. Heidegger reads pre-Socratics like Heraclitus not as primitive but as profound thinkers of Being, attending to how their fragments unfold (e.g., Heraclitus’ “physis loves to hide” as a dynamic event of revealing/concealing). Derrida’s deconstruction similarly problematizes texts, showing how words like “différance” slip between meanings, resisting a singular grasp. Both approaches reject the “meaning” mode’s simplification, instead dwelling in the text’s “sense”—its unfolding possibilities, like a river’s flow.

In Moby-Dick, a deconstructive reading might focus on how “whiteness” destabilizes meaning, oscillating between purity, terror, and nothingness, never settling. In Dickinson’s poem, deconstruction might linger on the dash after “We paused before a House that seemed—,” asking how it suspends time and meaning. These readings align with our poetic “sense,” where the text’s chaos is embraced, not mastered.

Hölderlin’s Poetic Dwelling

Hölderlin’s “blueing” of the sky exemplifies the “sense” mode in lived experience. The sky isn’t just “blue” (a grasped meaning); it’s an event of “blueing,” unfolding inconspicuously, noticed only when we dwell poetically, as after a storm. Similarly, the yellowness of the house isn’t just a static trait but an event of “yellowing,” leaping out in its appearing. This poetic mode attends to the “how” (verbs, adverbs) over the “what” (nouns, adjectives), seeing the world as a field of dynamic possibilities rather than fixed objects.

Hölderlin’s “full of merit, yet poetically man dwells” suggests we navigate the world dualistically: meritoriously grasping meaning for survival (finding the yellow house) and poetically sensing the world’s unfolding (the yellowness as an event). Texts mirror this: we grasp Moby-Dick’s theme for clarity but sense its words’ shifting functions for depth.

Deleuze’s Question: Interpreting Texts Like Music

Deleuze’s provocative question—what if we interpreted texts like music?—pushes the “sense” mode further. Music resists singular meaning; it’s experienced as rhythm, melody, and harmony unfolding in time, not reducible to a “what.” A musical reading of a text would prioritize its flow, texture, and affective shifts over a fixed interpretation.

• Moby-Dick as Music: Instead of grasping the theme, we’d attend to the novel’s rhythms—the ebb and flow of Ahab’s rants, the cadence of Ishmael’s digressions, the crescendo of the chase. “Whiteness” becomes a recurring motif, like a leitmotif, its sense shifting with each appearance.
• Dickinson’s Poem as Music: The dashes create pauses, like rests in a score; the slant rhymes hum with dissonance. Reading it musically means feeling its tempo (the “slowly” of Death’s carriage) and letting its mood resonate without pinning it to a lesson.
• Implications: A musical approach aligns with “sense,” treating texts as events unfolding in time, not objects to be grasped. It invites readers to dwell in the text’s movement, like Hölderlin’s “blueing,” rather than extracting a static meaning. This could transform the “Retell, Relate, Reflect, Review” model:
  • Retell: Describe the text’s rhythm or flow, not just its plot.
  • Relate: Connect to the text’s affective resonance, like a song’s mood.
  • Reflect: Explore how words or motifs recur and shift, like musical themes.
  • Review: Evaluate the text’s harmony or dissonance, its emotional impact.

Conclusion

The “meaning” versus “sense” distinction universalizes the earlier discussion of stories and poems. Stories lean toward meaning, inviting readers to grasp (capere) a singular interpretation (e.g., Moby-Dick’s theme of revenge), aligning with the simplifying impulse of “Retell, Relate, Reflect, Review.” Poems lean toward sense, slipping through attempts to pin them down, inviting problematization (e.g., Dickinson’s dashes as pauses in time). Heidegger and Derrida’s unsimplifying readings extend this to all texts, treating them as fields of possibility, while Hölderlin’s poetic dwelling applies it to life, seeing the world as both graspable (yellow house) and unfolding (yellowing event). Deleuze’s musical analogy pushes this further, suggesting texts be experienced as dynamic flows, not fixed meanings. The “Retell, Relate, Reflect, Review” model adapts to both modes but feels more fluid in “sense,” where retelling becomes tracing, relating becomes feeling, reflecting becomes dwelling, and reviewing becomes resonating. Ultimately, we live and read dualistically—grasping for meaning, yet poetically sensing the world’s and texts’ inexhaustible rivers.