S/P/66. Do literary works have objective meanings?

In order to accept literary works have objective meanings we must take an intentionalist view, identifying textual meaning with authorial meaning. In this essay, I have argued that the intentionalist viewpoint is subject to much difficulty, and though a role in surely played by intention, it is not to the extent that it would support an objective view of literary work. The argument is supported through discussions of Beardsley’s dismissal of intentionality, and arguments for the alternatives such as IAI (Currie - ‘implied author intentionalism’) and ‘criticism as response’ (Scruton).