This investigation was designed to shed light on the study of literature by focusing on the reader's affective understandings and by using the semantic differential (S.D.) to measure affective meaning. Initially, an experimental group of 49 advanced senior high school students and a comparison group of 53 average senior high students used the S.D. to indicate their affective understandings of a constellation of concepts related to the concept to be assessed in some poems. Then during a one-week period, the experimental group assessed nine poems on "death," using the S.D. to indicate their affective understandings of "death" and a written evaluation to indicate their cognitive understandings of "death" expressed in the poems. During the same period, the comparison group engaged in its regular class activities, which did not involve reading poetry or discussing "death." At the end of the week, both groups again used the S.D. to indicate their affective understandings of the constellation of concepts. Analysis of the data using analysis of variance, factor analysis, chi-square, related t-test, and correlation statistics warrant the following conclusions: (1) The S.D. does discriminate reliably among readers' affective understandings of views of a concept expressed in poetry; (2) There is a relationship between affective and cognitive understandings when taken across all poems. (Author/CK)