The link connecting a reader to a text is so strong that we cannot consider the one without also looking at the other. All too frequently, literary reception is studied by focusing either on the textual features or on the reader’s dispositional characteristics, which come into play in the reading process. The present paper proposes an integrated approach: reader and text carry different kinds of knowledge in reading, which cannot be easily separated. This knowledge may differ according to the extent to which it is shared among readers, but it all contributes to construct the final literary meaning. Consequently, literary reception can be seen as the result of the action of both widely shared and less shared knowledge, which together produce nomothetic and idiographic forms of meaning.