> To me it seems like it would make far more sense to focus on seeking the best conclusions using the source material as inspiration, rather than treating the s

> To me it seems like it would make far more sense to focus on seeking the best conclusions using the source material as inspiration, rather than treating the source material as an authority and seeking to understand exactly what they meant. But then why would you need the source material at all? You can just come to conclusions about things without relying on any source text, if grounding interpretation in the source text is not critical. In that case, literature (and criticism in general) become about the cleverness of the interpreter rather than anything about the art itself: the effect is to first devalue the art, then to devalue the study of art. To the extent that appreciating and studying art is useful to a society, ultimately this diminishes the culture. This is more or less what we've seen happen in the post-Deconstruction era.