To Read or Not to Read

I think the most important question to ask in relation to this text is; are the pieces of writing we read meant to mean something specific, or is it solely for entertainment or a single purpose that the author has already decided?
George Will believes that people delve into the meanings of literature too much, when they should not be because the author wrote the piece intending it to mean something in particular. While Stephen Greenblatt believes that when you take away the thought that the reader has to put into it then the piece of writing is not necessarily meaningless, but less influential in a sense.
Greenblatt states "The best way to kill our literary inheritance is to turn it into a decorous liturgical celebration of the new world order" (115). He believes that what George Will called "collective amnesia and deculturation" is really a sense of understanding for meaningful literature. Without this the reader cannot possibly understand not only what the author meant, but other ways of looking at it as well. Every novel can be read with multiple outlooks and understandings,which Greenblatt reinforces. "Poets cannot soar when their feet are stuck in social cement".
George Will is sort of an advocator for the author. He supports that they know what they want to say and how they want their audience to perceive it. " All literature on which canonical status is conferred represents the disguised or unexamined assumptions and interests of the dominant class, sex, race. Hence culture is oppressive and a literary canon is an instrument of domination" (111). Will feels that people read way too far into literature, and they do it for their benefit, more often for the benefit of their political party. They influence the canon used by the author to support themselves selfishly.
Both of these views seem kind of radical. Obviously, well in my opinion, a reader must look past just the words and plot and try to understand the authors canon. So, in between both you know? You have to try to understand, but do it from what the author attempts to display. There is definitely no right way to read. But i think if you put these two people together (you could name them George Greenblatt) then that would at least be a safe way to perceive another writers art.