Hi Monsoor,

I have a master's in English Romantic literature.

You wrote,
I wonder where does the meaning of great books lie. Is it with the writer, with the reader or in the text?

Of course, you're articulating the question that has been central to literary criticism and the philosophy of aesthetics. Different schools of thought exist about the literary aesthetic experience.

Some suggest we evaluate literature based on the literature itself, divorced from the reader and the writer. Of course, that's impossible.

Others suggest we read and evaluate literature as an experience, meaning that what is valid is only what the reader experiences, regardless of what the author intended.

Still others suggest we read and evaluate literature considering the author's intent and context. The artist, in other words, is integral to the artwork.

And others suggest that all of these are valid parts of the aesthetic experience, so we should read and evaluate the art work considering the author, the reader, and the unique experience at the moment the reader is reading.

My own view is that our consciousness has a personal, unique existence and relationship to the Universe. All of these views of the Universe are appropriate. I have a unique experience each time I come to a work of literature. If I read it again tomorrow, I will have an entirely new experience. Each is unique; in other words, the art work exists only when I interact with it, and my interaction is part of the art work.

I also believe the interaction is more dynamic and inclusive than we believe it to be on its face. We are all One. I am not separate from Poe or Hemingway or Keats. When I read what they wrote, my experience is a complex mixture of my interpretation, experiences, context, time in my life, time in history, and environment where I'm reading; at the same time, it includes my understanding of the author's context, time in history, other works, and all things I know about the author. But finally, my experience also includes my Unity with the author in the Greater Reality, with the insights I know without being told, the emotions I feel without a source, and the empathy I have without knowing the author intimately because I am One with him.

Knowledge, such as Einstein's knowledge of relativity that he gained through imagining he was riding a light beam, comes from the Greater Reality. That's where insights come from. When we read an insight someone else has gained from that source, what we learn may stimulate an insight in our thoughts coming from the same source.

The author's work is coming from that great source of knowledge, and my interpretation and insights have components from that same source. In the end, who I am has been enriched and expanded by what I've learned from the author and what I've learned from the Universe.

Love and peace, Craig