大概每一位作者在写作的时候,都有自己想要传达的信息,都希望自己的作品被人理解和欣赏,而在很长的时期里,西方文学批评主要关注的正是如何体会作者的本意,在符合作者原来用意的条件下,再进一步探讨鉴赏和批评的问题。可是,且不说了解过去时代作者的本意有多困难,就连生活在同一时代、处于同一类环境里的读者,也未必就能准确无误地领会作者原意,象他本人那样来欣赏和批评他的作品。宋代有名的文学家欧阳修有一段话,就极明白地说出了这种知音的困难。他写道: Perhaps every author at the time of writing has all the information he wants to convey and he hopes his works will be understood and appreciated. For a long time, the main concern of Western literary criticism is how to understand the author The original intention, in line with the original intention of the author under the conditions of further exploration and criticism of the issue. However, without understanding how difficult it was for the authors of the past times, even readers living in the same type of environment who live in the same era may not know the original intention of the author accurately and appreciate and criticize him as he himself did s work. Ouyang Xiu, a well-known writer in the Song Dynasty, made a very clear remark about the difficulty of this companion. He wrote: