from the reader.They demand awareness and intelligence:an ability to detect when the emphasis an author places on certain elements within the work can be legitimately said to carry those elements to larger,symbolic levels,and when the author means to imply nothing beyond what is literally stated. It is perfectly true,of course,that the meaning of any symbol is,by definition, indefinite and open-ended,and that a given symbol will evoke a slightly different response in different readers,no matter how discriminating.Yet there is an acceptable range of possible readings for any symbol beyond which we must not stray.We are always limited in our interpretation of symbols by the total context of the work in which they occur and by the way in which the author has established and arranged its other elements;and we are not free to impose---from the outside---our own personal and idiosyncratic meanings simply because they appeal to us.We must also be careful to avoid the danger of becoming so preoccupied with the larger significance of meaning that we forget the literal importance of the concrete thing being symbolized.from the reader. They demand awareness and intelligence: an ability to detect when the emphasis an author places on certain elements within the work can be legitimately said to carry those elements to larger, symbolic levels, and when the author means to imply nothing beyond what is literally stated. It is perfectly true, of course, that the meaning of any symbol is, by definition, indefinite and open-ended, and that a given symbol will evoke a slightly different response in different readers, no matter how discriminating. Yet there is an acceptable range of possible readings for any symbol beyond which we must not stray. We are always limited in our interpretation of symbols by the total context of the work in which they occur and by the way in which the author has established and arranged its other elements; and we are not free to impose---from the outside---our own personal and idiosyncratic meanings simply because they appeal to us. We must also be careful to avoid the danger of becoming so preoccupied with the larger significance of meaning that we forget the literal importance of the concrete thing being symbolized