The economy of literary interpretation

[...]when we judge certain assumptions as acceptable and reasonable on the one hand, and as strange, superfluous and ridiculous on the other, this is due to the logic of economical interpretation, based on a rule that says: try to account for maximum textual details while using minimum, simple assumptions. If we want to delve more deeply in our interpretation, however, and to account not only for certain conspicuous meanings but also for the rich net of nuances and connotations, a certain degree of complication in our assumptions is not only tolerable but almost unavoidable. [...]despite the price of complications of assumption, we also achieve some important gains; despite what seems to be a violation of economic principles, therefore, its basic logic of achieving a good ratio between assumptions and textual details is maintained. According to this challenge, whereas economic principles are operative in our interpretation of simple, popular songs like "Old MacDonald Had a Farm/' the interpretations of literary and poetic texts are and should be free from the reins of such principles. [...]perhaps even more importantly, I suspect that even avid advocates of creative, imaginative interpretations have their own version of economic principles at work: they might embrace a reading that sees the speaker in Donne's first two stanzas of "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" to be Jupiter; but no one (I hope) would suggest that he is a Hippopotamus.