scispace - formally typeset
Search or ask a question
Book

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.
Citations
More filters
Book ChapterDOI
01 Jan 2004
TL;DR: The Reader in the Book by Aidan Chambers was included in Peter Hunt's anthology of Children's Literature Criticism with the warning that it was written […] in the very early days of response/reception criticism.
Abstract: As long ago as 1990 ‘The Reader in the Book’ by Aidan Chambers was included in Peter Hunt’s anthology of Children’s Literature Criticism with the warning that it ‘was written […] in the very early days of response/reception criticism—at least in terms of its availability to a general audience. In this sense, the article has certain limitations, and Chambers has taken his arguments further since then.’1 Michael Benton, in his 1996 survey-article of developments in ‘reader-response criticism’ within children’s literature, however, still also sees Aidan Chambers’s work as groundbreaking in particular respects, writing that Chambers’s article is ‘regarded as a landmark’, but also that ‘this lead has been followed so infrequently’.2 Benton’s explanation for this is that ‘criticism has moved on’.3 This chapter will argue instead that ‘The Reader in the Book’ is still relevant to the study of Children’s Literature because contemporary criticism is still laboring under the same assumptions such texts make about the child and its reading, and employ many of the problematic moves made by that text. This ‘Childist’4 criticism may be read as an attempt to move away from what it regarded as the reductive simplicity of contemporary Children’s Literature Criticism, seeking to ‘break the power attributed to the text itself by the intrinsic criticism which dominated literary studies throughout the twentieth century, and empower the reader instead’.5

7 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Benjy as discussed by the authors, Narrativity and the Coherence of Compson History, Vol. 7, Festschrift for W. Wolfgang Holdheim, pp. 207-228.
Abstract: (1995). Benjy, Narrativity, and the Coherence of Compson History. Law & Literature: Vol. 7, Festschrift for W. Wolfgang Holdheim, pp. 207-228.

7 citations

Book ChapterDOI
01 Jan 2014
TL;DR: Literary translation and studies of literary translation are at times dismissed as irrelevant to translation theory and to the teaching of translation practice in translation studies as mentioned in this paper, and some translation studies scholars view them as too eccentric, too specialized, and perhaps even too precious to be taken seriously as the basis for developing translation theory.
Abstract: Literary translation and studies of literary translation are at times dismissed as irrelevant to translation theory and to the teaching of translation practice in translation studies. Some translation studies scholars view them as too eccentric, too specialized, and perhaps even too precious to be taken seriously as the basis for developing translation theory, for more general theoretical inquiries about translation, and for the teaching of translation practice to those preparing for careers in the marketplace.

7 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The main contours of Matthew's eschatology are relatively uncontested, including the apparent tension between what has been called his realized and future eschatologies, while Matthew himself seems to be remarkably relaxed about it.
Abstract: The main contours of Matthew's eschatology are relatively uncontested, including the apparent tension between what has been called his 'realized' eschatology and his 'future' eschatology. However, there is less agreement on whether or how this tension can be resolved, while Matthew himself seems to be remarkably relaxed about it. This article attempts to explain this surprising fact, and offers a new approach to reconciling the tension. The eschatological data in the Gospel are analysed by a process of 'adaptive inference' in order to build progressively its 'implied temporal framework'. The article concludes with a claim that the temporal framework implied by the Gospel is a relatively simple threefold division of history in which, after the period prior to the coming of Jesus, the central pattern of tribulation and vindication experienced by Jesus in his life, death and resurrection inaugurates an age in which a derivative pattern of tribulation and vindication is to be experienced by his followers.

7 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the challenges resulting from the regulation of written discourse on food packages and use Hong Kong's strict new food-labeling law that requires distributers and retailers to remove certain nutritional claims from packages of imported food before they sell them.
Abstract: This article examines the challenges resulting from the regulation of written discourse on food packages. It uses as a case study Hong Kong’s strict new food-labeling law that requires distributers and retailers to remove certain nutritional claims from packages of imported food before they sell them. This practice of redacting unlawful text on packages requires that distributers and retailers engage in complex processes of discursive reasoning, and it sometimes results in packages that are difficult for customers to interpret. The case study highlights important issues in the regulation of commercial texts concerning collaboration, intertextuality, and the conflicts that can arise when the principals, authors, and animators of such texts have different agendas.

7 citations