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The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett

01 Jan 1974-
TL;DR: 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.
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07 Feb 2012
TL;DR: In this article, Boylan's Narrative Caricature Inside the Worlds of "Penelope" is used to describe the possible worlds of Ulysses and its possible worlds.
Abstract: Introduction: Virgin Reading, Possible Worlds Theory, and the Odyssean Intertext of Ulysses PART I: STEPHEN DEDALUS The Conflicts of Stephen Dedalus: From the "Telemachiad" to "Aeolus" The Stakes of Stephen's Gambit: "Scylla and Charybdis" The Larger World of "Wandering Rocks": The Case of Father Conmee PART II: LEOPOLD BLOOM Meet the Blooms: Secrets, Implicature, and Suspense in "Calypso" and "Lotus Eaters" Jewish in Dublin: Bloom's Encounters on the Way to "Cyclops" An Anatomy of Anti-Semitism: the "Cyclops" Episode The (Im)possible Worlds of the "Oxen of the Sun" "Circe": Stephen's and Bloom's Catharsis The Text as Salvation Army: Abjection and Perception in "Eumaeus" Stephen Dedalus's anti-Semitic Ballad: A Sabotaged Climax in "Ithaca" PART III: MOLLY BLOOM Molly Bloom before "Penelope" Don't Call Him "Blazes": Hugh E. Boylan's Narrative Caricature Inside the Worlds of "Penelope"

23 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that a literary work can become a classic when it transcends its original context of production and its contents are progressively appropriated by actors and organizations that had no share in their production.
Abstract: If meanings are so contested and changeable, how can individuals reach a collective agreement about what makes some cultural objects meaningful over time and across space? And how can social scientists construe robust interpretations of cultural objects whose meanings are shifting and malleable? These questions are pertinent to literary classics, whose meanings relentlessly change, and yet people living in different countries and historical periods collectively agree about their significance. This article argues that a literary work can become a classic when it transcends its original context of production and its contents are progressively appropriated by actors and organizations that had no share in their production. Using the case of One Hundred Years of Solitude, this article, first, studies 10 ways in which that novel transcended its original context and, second, documents the appropriation of some of its contents in 56 countries between 1967 and 2013. To contribute to more robust interpretations of meaningful cultural objects with shifting meanings, this article offers four patterns (lived experience, universalization, artistic commensuration and entrenched criticism) involved in the collective fabrication of the value of One Hundred Years of Solitude as a literary classic.

22 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories (1899) as mentioned in this paper is a collection of short stories about women's romantic quest to win the heart of Theophile, who has temporarily transferred his affections to Claralie.
Abstract: The title story of Alice Dunbar-Nelson's The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories (1899) tells of young Manuela's romantic quest to win the heart of Theophile, who has, as the story begins, temporarily transferred his affections to Claralie. Manuela recites nouvenas for his love and the story ends happily. Manuela weds Theophile; Claralie says that she "always preferred Leon"; and the narrator, attempting to answer the question of "how it happened," concludes with this sweet admonition: "St. Rocque knows, for he is a good saint, and if you believe in him and are true and good, and make your nouvenas with a clean heart, he will grant your wish." (1) It is the kind of moment that Gloria T. Hull, the scholar who resurrected interest in Dunbar-Nelson, finds hardest to swallow: in her view Dunbar-Nelson "buttresses the traditional and romantic view of women," and readers today find that "her plots often seem predictable, her situations hackneyed or melodramatic, her narrative style unsophisticated." (2) To this day, Hull's evaluation exercises a powerful hold on approaches to Dunbar-Nelson's work--even those that are otherwise commendatory. (3) It should give us pause, however, that "The Goodness of Saint Rocque" contradicts almost every assertion of its sweet concluding paragraph. The tone of religious piety is complicated by the fact that the "Wizened One" to whom Manuela goes for help appeals to the supernatural, giving her "one lil' charm" (9) to wear round her waist before making her nouvena. Since Claralie has already "mek' nouvena in St. Rocque [the church] fo' hees [Theophile's] love," it would appear that either St. Rocque fails to grant Claralie's wish or that the tie-breaker between the pair is the charm and not the nouvena. The narrator has already forestalled the possibility that Manuela deserves to win because she, not Claralie, is "true and good, and [makes] her nouvenas with a clean heart." Her primary motivations are jealousy, possessiveness, competitiveness, and pride. The "bitterness of spirit" (5) at the party where Theophile deserts Manuela is occasioned by the fact that "Theophile was Manuela's own especial property" and sharpened by the fact that he deserts her, the girl with "dark eyes," for "Claralie, blonde and petite" (3). The phrase in apposition implies that interwoven issues of race, class, and color play a central (though unacknowledged) part in Creole culture and in the struggle between the two girls. The tensions between the two finally erupt at the church of St. Rocque--whose patron saint looks for nouvenas made with a clean heart!--where the two exchange "murderous glances" (13). From this perspective, the insouciant final paragraph seems designed to provoke reflection on the ironic discrepancies in the story between various tonal registers. This essay argues in part that in The Goodness of St. Rocque Dunbar-Nelson constantly modulates between tonal registers, creating in the process what I call narrative strategies of "rhetorical diversion." That phrase is intended to suggest what is entertaining ("diverting") about her stories--an important consideration when a reputation for hackneyed romanticism has prevented a fuller appreciation of her work. More importantly, I use the phrase to denote the way Dunbar-Nelson typically juxtaposes or shifts rhetorical modes in such a way as to make acts of diversion and negotiation a constant feature of our interpretive experience. (4) This happens within stories, as when "St. Rocque" combines romantic material with hard-edged cultural analysis. It also occurs as readers move from, or look back from, one story to another, as we shall see when "St. Rocque" modulates to "Tony's Wife"--a tonal shift repeated in varying ways throughout the collection. An important effect is to engage readers in an ever-shifting series of decisions about tone and about the significance of tone. We must adjudicate, for example, between the blithe sweetness of "if you believe in him . …

22 citations