"With many great works it is impossible to tell whether the reader is intended (if that means anything) to take them literally or as irony -- impossible to tell, in other words, whether the work means one thing or its diametric opposite.  This ambiguity is the characteristic of literature (and of many classics of philosophy) that gives deconstruction its purchase.  Although it would be going too far to say that ambiguity is the hallmark of great literature, it is a frequent characteristic of it . . . .  Works are called great because they transcend boundaries of period and culture, because they have a certain generality . . . even universality, which is to say that they mean different things to different people."   Posner at 1369.