Commentary on Stanley Fish's "How to Recognize a Poem When You See One"

Hersh Patel AP English 14 September 2003 Commentary on Stanley Fish Article "How to Recognize a Poem When You See One" <Tab/>Stanley Fish, in his inductive essay "How to Recognize a Poem When You See One", argues that the process of "distinguishing" certain "features" of an object follows "the act of recognition". Fish offers such conclusions from a short anecdote, which illustrates an analytical response of a group of students to five …

…poem "you will attend to the presence of alliterative and consonantal patterns, and you will try to make something of them." Again Fish exemplifies how in the search for poetic techniques one cannot fail. In his insight, however, words such as "will" and "always" imply invariability, the impossibility of failure, and thus, invalidates his argument, once again, through the fallacy of generalization. Overall, Fish's illogical support for his theories and ideas makes the essay unconvincing.