Open AccessBook
The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett
Reads0
Chats0
TLDR
Iser as mentioned in this paper analyzed major works of English fiction ranging from Bunyan, Fielding, Scott, and Thackeray to Joyce and Beckett, and provided a framework for a theory of such literary effects and aesthetic responses.Abstract:
Like no other art form, the novel confronts its readers with circumstances arising from their own environment of social and historical norms and stimulates them to assess and criticize their surroundings. By analyzing major works of English fiction ranging from Bunyan, Fielding, Scott, and Thackeray to Joyce and Beckett, renowned critic Wolfgang Iser here provides a framework for a theory of such literary effects and aesthetic responses. Iser's focus is on the theme of discovery, whereby the reader is given the chance to recognize the deficiencies of his own existence and the suggested solutions to counterbalance them. The content and form of this discovery is the calculated response of the reader -- the implied reader. In discovering the expectations and presuppositions that underlie all his perceptions, the reader learns to "read" himself as he does the text.read more
Citations
More filters
Book ChapterDOI
The Dynamics of Reading: A Lost Lady
TL;DR: Literature texts are not self-sufficient objects: they do not exist on bookshelves, and for literature to happen, the reader is quite as vital as the author.
Journal ArticleDOI
Analogy, Exemplum, and the First Tale of Juan Manuel's El Conde Lucanor
TL;DR: Almansi as discussed by the authors pointed out that Boccaccio's Decameron is more applicable to the Decameron than to the Divine Comedy, and pointed out the importance of the first story in the first book as a kind of introduction to the whole work.
Book ChapterDOI
Dream of the Noble and the Beggarman
TL;DR: In this article, Yeats's poem "The Municipal Gallery Re-visited" contains a stanza which offers a retrospective reverie concerning the thematic impetus underlying the work of the ILT's three major Ascendancy dramatists who formed the Abbey Theatre's first directorate.
Journal ArticleDOI
Anti-style and the postmodernist novel
TL;DR: A consideration of attitudes towards style in contemporary narratives leads to the conclusion that decorum and convention are often deliberately marked in order to draw attention to their artificiality as discussed by the authors, and that a critical stance is often adopted towards adequate or appropriate styles, so that anti-style, or a deliberate break with decorum or uniformity, highlights the fictitious nature of what is narrated.
Book ChapterDOI
Introduction: Creative Encounters Over Time and Space—Writers, Readers and Researchers
TL;DR: In this article, the relationship between Nemirovsky, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Chekhov is studied in terms of creative influence, which indicates a meeting of artistic minds that includes affective and creative encounters between writers, readers and researchers.