ABSTRACT
Text and context is sound practical advice when disputing the meaning or the interpretation of a poem, play, painting, etc. to 'stick to what's in front of you', which is the text, canvas, etc. Otherwise, the text, canvas, etc. becomes merely a stimulus to more or less idiosyncratic, more or less interesting associations, meditations, and reflections. For instance, knowing the Roman alphabet, people have no difficulty in seeing 'I Vitelli Dei Romani Sono Belli' as text. On an obviously Roman monument the words are Latin; in the middle of a text being read in Italian they are Italian: the context is then the context for this text. For example, Marxist critics will generally want to insist that there is always a right context, and that it has as one dominant or determinant subpart the class-related ideological complex which the individual work will express, even if unbeknown to its author.
