In 1949 Wimsatt and Beardsley wrote about "the affective fallacy"--arguing that readers feelings obscure meaning...in their words, "The Affective Fallacy is a confusion between the poem and its results...It begins by trying to derive the standard of criticism from the pyshchological effects of a poem and ends with in impressionism and relativism." New Critics loved this idea as a means to justify their "close readings" but Reader Response critics loved it better, though folks like Stanley Fish were openly directed at not what a poem means, but what it does. And Louise Rosenblatt, before WWII was talking about literature as a continuum where the reader's identity does indeed create meaning from his or her identity in flux with text and author. Deconstruction subverts most intention...I'm sorry but clinging to authorial intention is like clinging to partiarchy IMHO, and perhaps even more striking is that clinging to intention is religious...but maybe scottie or another priest will say more of what is really meant by an author's intention...ha, what a lovely pun for someone who I suspect is among our list's most widely published authors, will