Lewis points out in Chapter 3 of An Experiment in Criticism that to truly understand a work of art, music, or literature, we must surrender to the work on its own terms. This doesn't mean that we must agree with it, but that we must slow down and let the work be what it is before we evaluate it or impose our own meaning on it.

We must begin by laying as completely as we can all our own preconceptions, interests, and associations. We must make room for Botticelli's Mars and Venus, or Cimabue's Crucifixion, by emptying out our own. After the negative effort, the positive. We must use our eyes. We must look, and go on looking till we have certainly seen exactly what is there. We sit down before the picture in order to have something done to us, not that we may do things with it. The first demand any work of any art makes upon us is surrender. Look. Listen. Receive. Get yourself out of the way. (There is no good asking first whether the work before you deserves such a surrender, for until you have surrendered you cannot possibly find out.)