Spanning nearly two decades, these essays turn on a central theme: what is meant by reading a serious text at a time when theories of language and literature question the very possibility of any agreed meaning, and at a time when new technologies seem likely to replace books as we have known them since Gutenberg? The question is brought to bear deliberately on the Bible, Homer and Shakespeare. The collection ends with a series of essays on the philosophic-theological underwriting of communication, with particular reference to what language tells us of Socrates and of Jesus.