Interpretations, of course, are never wholly constrained by the intentions of authors or the responses of audiences: great, good and sometimes mediocre works of literature yield new meanings for posterity.

The story of Adam and Eve and their expulsion from Eden, compressed into two brief chapters in the Book of Genesis, has been made to yield meanings that have colored the whole course of Christian thinking about freedom, morality and human nature.

Both the terms "Buffalaxed" and "Benny Lava" are now synonymous with mondegreens, "words or phrases misheard in ways that yield new meanings."

The surface ironies of those paintings yielded deeper meanings about memory, the trustfulness of children and the large and small lies of history.

But her purpose was more than a matter of presentation: she sought to demonstrate how books of artistically bold pictures could also yield social and political meanings beyond the purview of art and thus appeal to broad audiences.

Mr. Eastwood treats the conventions of the boxing-movie genre, its measured alternations of adversity and redemption, like the chord changes to a familiar song - the kind of standard that can, in the hands of a deft and sensitive musician, be made to yield fresh meanings and unexpected reservoirs of deep and difficult emotion.

It is the mark of a masterpiece like Faust that it continues to yield new and exciting meanings as each generation of readers encounters it.

For many interpreters this focus means ferreting out the diverse voices and points of view within the text - allowing the interplay of inconsistencies, contradictions and juxtapositions to yield multiple meanings.