Meaning is created on BOTH sides of a text - author encoding it and reader interpreting - and shifts across time, context, perspectives
To (approx) quote Ricoeur, it's by being reinterpreted in new contexts, not by repeating significations fixed forever, that any work stays alive to the imagination
Amelinda Bérubé
Art can and often does have an intended "takeaway", and I think it's useful to develop the literacy skills to interpret what was being said anyway, because there's often more to find beyond what the creator meant to say.
