Everybody is making love or else expecting rain

Yesterday we were introduced to even more literary terms, and we spent some time giving examples of each. I brought up the song "Desolation Row" by Bob Dylan for its laundry list of allusions to other works, and I've decided to put that list together for your viewing pleasure.

-Cinderella
-Bette Davis
-Romeo
-Cain and Abel
-Hunchback of Notre Dame
-Ophelia
-Einstein
-Robin Hood
-Phantom of the Opera
-Casanova
-Nero
-Titanic
-Ezra Pound
-T.S. Eliot

Two lines were also lifted from a Jack Kerouac novel, "Desolation Angels":
-perfect image of a priest
-her sin is her lifelessness

I was originally gonna give my two cents on the song's meaning, but then I realized how bored I am with my own interpretations of things. Y'ever notice how after awhile, all of your opinions become really one-sided, just for the simple fact that you have your general views so deeply etched into your mind? So I beg of you, fellow College Lit students, to read through this song and leave a comment with your take on the song's meaning.

Lyrics:
http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/1110/

Audio:

Where you end usually depends on where you start

These past couple of days, we've been looking at some fairly abstract art and seemingly harmless short stories and delving into them for a deeper understanding of their hidden meanings. This brings up a point that I've considered before, but never in any great amount of detail: do authors and artists intend half (or even any) of the interpretations people take from their work? When I was a kid I loved The Hobbit because I thought Tolkien had come up with an extraordinary, captivating story with a cutesy, sugary coating. After rereading it a month ago, I realized how meaningful the morals and lessons of the story really are.

So the question is: which came first, the story or the moral? That's obviously left up to the author, but what if people take more meaning from stories than was originally intended? It makes it seem like the majority of the lessons we've learned were actually derived from our own subconcious. I guess that just goes to show the importance of literature. Without it, we wouldn't know half the things we already know.