New Criticism

New Criticism was the foremost trend in English-language literary criticism during the middle-20th century. It focused on a close reading of the text itself, abjuring the use of information extraneous to the text, such as biographical information about the author or writings by the author about the work itself. The author's intent for the text was itself virtually irrelevant, according to New Critical theory; all that mattered was the text, and analyzing the various multiple meanings that were present in the text.

Since all language has multiple meanings and layers of meanings, any text is inherently somewhat ambiguous. Any understanding that an audience might take from the work is "overdetermined", or driven by the many inherent meanings within a work.