| Now the third approach to meaning, that is, meaning is created by the reader. Does the meaning then exist in the reader's response? In a sense, this is inescapable. Meaning exists only insofar as it means to someone. And literary works are written in order to evoke sets of responses in the reader. This leads us to consider three essential issues. The first is, meaning is social, that is, language and conventions work only as shared meaning. And our way of viewing the world can exist only as shared or sharable. Similarly when we read a text, we are participating in social or cultural meaning, so response to a piece of literary work is not merely an individual thing, but is part of culture and history. |
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