Quote:
Originally Posted by The Colonel
As per the (possibly apocryphal) example ... what would the author know about what their work means? ;-)
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Any work of artistry has no less than 3 meanings:
- What it means to the creator after it's done,
- what it means to the partaker
- what it was intended to mean when the creator made it.
And then...
- The work as it is perceived by historians (looking for what it says of the time it was created during)
- The common meanings of various subcultures. (Think how Tolkien's work has different meanings for gamers than for the general audiences)
- The Meaning as perceived by format shifters (TV producers, Movie producers, translaters, recording artists, etc...)
- The meaning as perceived by students and other coerced consumers.
- For performance arts, the meaning it has to the performers
There are only two the Author really is authoritative upon - what it means to them now, and what it was intended to mean. Most of the honest ones admit that the original intent and the current meaning to themselves are often different.
Hell, what a movie or show meant to an actor on it during the run and after the run are often different... and may even change over time... (see Nimoy,
I Am Not Spock and
I Am Spock for an example of this)