> The essay's point is that the reader's judgement is just as valid as But it's not. The question isn't "what does this mean to YOU", but "what did this mean t

> The essay's point is that the reader's judgement is just as valid as But it's not. The question isn't "what does this mean to YOU", but "what did this mean to the author". If I pick words randomly I can say with authority that there is no meaning in the words, and for all your understandings you can't change that the words were picked blindly, and thus without meaning. > The author is not the final and not the only interpretation that's valid. As to the author's intent, yes it is. Whatever intent there was is set down with the ink on paper. You come later, as a reader, so your interpretation is at most an addendum and not part of the original. > [...] can be interpreted by the reader as having meaning even though Noam Chomsky says it's a meaningless sentence. Sure. But an interpretation isn't a change in the nature of the actual thing. Even if I interpret an elephant as a butterfly it won't fly away. This entire literary "discipline" (cough) is based on refusing to use an accurate description of the practice. Everyone agrees that a text can invoke various things - even unintended things - in various readers. That doesn't mean you're finding something inherent in the text but in the reader.