The discussion of Gadamer and Hirsch is taken up in this essay, which further examines the relationship between reading and interpretation. Through a comparative analysis of these theorists, the difference between meaning and significance, the relationship between understanding and paraphrasing, and the nature of the gap between the reader and the text are explored. Through Wolfgang Iser’s essay, “The Reading Process,” the nature of textual expectation and surprise, and the theory of their universal importance in narrative, is explained. This essay concludes by considering the fundamental, inescapable role that hermeneutic premises play in canon formation.