Here is a discussion board post for my graduate class in Literary Criticism:

Greetings all!  I hope that you are all safe and warm in your own part of the country.  I am home from school because of inclement weather (mainly ice, just a little snow), but we have maintained power and are warm and safe.

My initial reaction to the question of whether I consider the author or the audience more important in the production of literature is that I believe the author is more important.  I feel that the author is the one with the message, and his or her work can still be great literature even if there is no audience in the the writer's time that feels that the work has significance.

But, then again, what makes great literature great to me is the readers' ability to relate to the work and take away meaning from the work.  So, as has been stated in our assigned readings this week, is what the author intended to create in the work significant at all?  The author could be seen as just providing a framework for readers to construct their own meaning.  It is the readers who take the work and create meaning from it.

Then, however, I know my own frustration about being able to write something (anything!) that is meaningful to others. Because of my own knowledge of the challenges and frustrations of writing, I see that the author is the one who creates the experience of meaning-making for his or her readers.  The readers develop what is usually a limited array of meanings, but the meanings can be intensely personal and reveal great truth.

In today's materialistic and fame driven culture, I would say that the readers are viewed by everyone involved in publishing as the individuals with the power.  Last Christmas I decided that my older brother might enjoy a book of contemporary poetry as a Christmas present.  I don't frequent major book retailers often because there are few near me, and I am averse to paying full price for books.  So, I was a bit surprised when I entered a major book seller and could not find the poetry section.  After searching and asking, I finally found a slim selection of volumes in the middle of a row of shelves. Almost every book in the store was popular fiction and what wasn't popular fiction was some other genre in which there was not much opportunity for personal interpretation.  Sure, there's plenty of opportunity for imagination, but what is the last book you bought and read through which you really were able to develop your own insight into what the text meant and that meaning was unique to you?  I believe that the reader is driving the market and is thus driving the authors to write entertaining and perhaps informative texts, but in general not texts that challenge us and enable us to interpret for ourselves the author's meaning. Please, someone, show me that I am wrong.  Looking forward to discussion.