Abstract
In his pseudo-platonic dialogue Eupalinos, ou l'architecte, Paul Valéry shows how a building or a text can function as an autonomous work of art of literature, and at the same time carry a hidden and private meaning: the little temple Eupalinos has built for Hermes is 'the mathematical image' of a girl he loved. In this way Valéry indicates how a work of art can have a 'public' meaning and, as such, invite interpretation, while at the same time masking that the text is used privately, in a very specific context, to say certain things. But how do these two meanings and readings relate? How does the reading by Beatrice or Kafka's father relate to a literary interpretation of Dante or of Kafka's letter? It shows that the 'first' or 'private' reading, without ever being able to offer what interpretation is after, unevitably disturbs and challenges the literary interpretation and the aesthetic experience