Sorry Stilly but when you say "telling us that the overriding sentiment is this or that is a dogmatic approach to the understanding", do you mean telling people things like

"A poem with gut-shot men in the background may have begun with a narrator reflecting on that earlier time, but the crucial events are in a time of war. We will have to agree to disagree if you think this isn't a war poem"?

Am I missing something in the word dogmatic that excludes anyone insisting that it is a war poem?