ambiguity

Ambiguity is everywhere:
Ambiguity in Literature: Definition, Examples & Quiz | Education Portal

The ambiguity of poetry....
poetryarchive.org | Poetry archive

The Irish poet WB Yeats died 75 years ago:
W. B. Yeats - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


The Lake Isle of Innisfree by William Butler Yeats - YouTube

Lake Isle of Innisfree

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.
                     – W.B. Yeats

Lake Isle of Innisfree - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
william-butler-yeats-lesson-plan-
BBC Radio 4 - Poetry Please, Yeats

And what about Bob Dylan?


Blowing In The Wind (Live On TV, March 1963) - YouTube

"Blowin' in the Wind" is a song written by Bob Dylan in 1962 and released on his album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan in 1963. Although it has been described as a protest song, it poses a series of rhetorical questions about peace, war and freedom. The refrain "The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind" has been described as "impenetrably ambiguous: either the answer is so obvious it is right in your face, or the answer is as intangible as the wind".^[2]

Blowin' in the Wind - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ambiguity and Abstraction in the Lyrics of Bob Dylan

And what about ambiguity and literature?

A professor once pointed out to me that the phrase "the love of God" 
might mean a love which God feels or it might me the love which 
people feel towards God and there is even a third possibility which is 
rather difficult to explain, but a kind of disembodied love, like an 
energy or force, in the sense of the verse "God IS love" (i.e. this sort of 
love as an energy or force or field in it's own right, and perhaps as 
distinguished from other sorts of love.

The above is an example of a phrase which is ambiguous. I suppose 
there are words which are ambiguous, or perhaps we might say 
multi-valent. 

There are statements which are ambivalent. A very famous example 
from antiquity is when a king inquired of the Delphic oracle regarding 
a war which he was hoping to wage. The oracle answered, "If you go 
to battle, a great nation will fall." The king foolishly assumed that the 
great nation to fall would be his enemy's nation and not his own.

The Power of Ambiguity
Embracing Ambiguity in the Poetry Classroom | Jennifer Platow

Seven Types of Ambiguity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Or how stories often have an ambiguous ending:
Are Ambiguous Endings Powerful or Frustrating?

SPOILER ALERT!!


Top 10 Movies with Ambiguous Endings - YouTube
Top 10 Movies with Ambiguous Endings | WatchMojo.com

AND:


Top 10 Movies That You Have To Watch Twice - YouTube
Top 10 Movies That You Have To Watch Twice | WatchMojo.com

Stephen Pinker examines the ambiguity of language:



In this new RSA Animate, renowned experimental psychologist Steven Pinker shows us how the mind turns the finite building blocks of language into infinite meanings. Taken from the RSA's free public events programme www.thersa.org/events.
Watch the full lecture here: http://www.thersa.org/events/video/ar...

RSA Animate - Language as a Window into Human Nature - YouTube
Would you like to come upstairs and see my etchings.

Then there is moral ambiguity:
Why moral ambiguity is popular on TV and the big screen | Deseret News National
.
.
.