To what extent and in what ways does the meaning of a literary text depend on its reader? The dictionary definition of the word 'meaning' is 'that which is meant by a word, text, concept or action'. I will focus on what is meant by literary texts and whether meaning is a single fixed idea created when the text is written by the author and cannot change at any time or situation. Or whether meaning is a malleable form in which certain variables, such as gender, class, the age of the readers or the time period in which the text is read, and the age of the text, can influence it. My belief is that meaning is subjective, as time passes and the world changes socially, academically and financially, ideas in literature can become irrelevant, absurd or sometimes even offensive to the new society. New meanings can be applied to old texts even as readers' lifestyles and opinions change. This is where “reception theory” becomes relevant and important. The Readers Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory explains that Hans Robert Jauss added a historical component to previously inadequate reception theory, creating a new theory entitled "horizon of expectations". This "describes the criteria that readers use to judge literary texts in a given period", helps the reader judge the genre of a poem, and also helps to clarify what is meant by poetic or literary language. Jauss stated: «A literary work is not an object that stands alone and offers the same face to each reader in each era. It is not a monument that reveals its timeless essence in a monologue.' This means that we are unable to review the rise and fall of a text to the present day and determine its final meaning, as that would be to ignore our history,...... middle of paper... . S. Literary theory: the basics. London, England: Taylor & Francis, 2010.Bloom, Harld. Robert Browning. Broomall, Pennsylvania: Chelsea House Publishers, 2001.Browning, Robert. "My last duchess." The Norton Poetry Anthology. Ed. Margaret Ferguson and Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. London: Norton & Company, 2005. 1012-1016.Byron, Glennis. Dramatic monologue. London New York: Routledge, 2003. Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. 1902. Ed. Paul O'Prey. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1989. Johnson, Barbara. The wake of deconstruction. Ed. Michael Payne and Harold Schweizer. Oxford: Blackwell Publsihers, 1994.Marinis, Marco. The semiotics of performance. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993.Selden, Raman. A reader's guide to contemporary literary theory. Lexington, Ky: University Press of Kentucky, 1993. Stoppard, Tom. Arcadia. 1993. London: Faber & Faber, 2009.