readers and meaning

One of the way literature is understood depend on the person who is reading it and the "knowledge that readers and writers bring to their encounters with texts" as stated by Culler. Culler also pointed out that "the way readers make sense of literature is called the "readers response criticism" which means that the meaning of the text is the experience of the reader. when a person tells a story about a given piece it theorists called the "horizon of expectations" which means that a reader from 20 or 30 years ago my interpreted differently in modern times i think it also depends on a person's culture as in the poem "Leda and the Swan" some Greeks may have believed that the Swan was a God and so Leda should be happy that a God choose her however other persons may believe that it was immoral and that Swan should have been found and killed or maybe it was possessed. Another factor that could affect horizon of expectations would be feminism criticism also in 'Leda and the Swan' is where a feminist would say its degrading and why is it that just because Leda is a female she should be taken advantage of. In music videos or even the songs themselves some feminists may claim that the women are being exploited and being referred to as "bitches" which is also degrading and the guys who refer to women as that do not think of it as degrading.