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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.
Citations
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Dissertation
01 Jan 2007
TL;DR: In this article, an analysis of female identity in four of Elizabeth Bowen's Wartime texts is presented, focusing on the identification at risk of women during the war years and the identification of women's identities.
Abstract: Identity at Risk. An Analysis of Female Identity in Four of Elizabeth Bowen's Wartime Texts

5 citations

03 Dec 2011
TL;DR: The work in this article analyzes the effort to build political legitimacy in the Republic of Turkey by exploring a group of influential texts produced by Kemalist writers and explores how the Kemalist regime reproduced a long-lasting enlightenment meta-narrative in its effort to construct political legitimacy.
Abstract: The study analyzes the effort to build political legitimacy in the Republic of Turkey by exploring a group of influential texts produced by Kemalist writers. The study explores how the Kemalist regime reproduced certain long-lasting enlightenment meta-narrative in its effort to build political legitimacy. Central in this process was a hegemonic representation of history, namely the interpretation of the Anatolian Resistance Struggle of 1919–1922 as a Turkish Revolution executing the enlightenment in the Turkish nation-state. The method employed in the study is contextualizing narratological analysis. The Kemalist texts are analyzed with a repertoire of concepts originally developed in the theory of narrative. By bringing these concepts together with epistemological foundations of historical sciences, the study creates a theoretical frame inside of which it is possible to highlight how initially very controversial historical representations in the end manage to construct long-lasting, emotionally and intellectually convincing bases of national identity. The two most important explanatory concepts in this sense are diegesis and implied reader. The diegesis refers to the ability of narrative representation to create an inherently credible storyworld that works as the basis of national community. The implied reader refers to the process where a certain hegemonic narrative creates a formula of identification and a position through which any individual real-world reader of a story can step inside the narrative story-world and identify oneself as one of “us” of the national narrative. The study demonstrates that the Kemalist enlightenment meta-narrative created a group of narrative accruals which enabled generations of secular middle classes to internalize Kemalist ideology. In this sense, the narrative in question has not only worked as a tool utilized by the so-called Kemalist state-elite to justify its leadership, but has been internalized by various groups in Turkey, working as their genuine world-view. It is shown in the study that secularism must be seen as the core ingredient of these groups’ national identity. The study proposes that the enlightenment narrative reproduced in the Kemalist ideology had its origin in a similar totalizing cultural narrative created in and for Europe. Currently this enlightenment project is challenged in Turkey by those who are in an attempt to give religion a greater role in Turkish society. The study argues that the enduring practice of legitimizing political power through the enlightenment meta-narrative has not only become a major factor contributing to social polarization in Turkey, but has also, in contradiction to the very real potentials for critical approaches inherent in the Enlightenment tradition, crucially restricted the development of critical and rational modes of thinking in the Republic of Turkey.

5 citations

Dissertation
01 Dec 2012
TL;DR: The authors explored the composition and arrangement of Martial's twelve-book series, the Epigrams, and investigated the way in which key themes combine to create a pseudo-narrative for the reader to follow which connects not only individual books but the series as a whole.
Abstract: This thesis explores the composition and arrangement of Martial’s twelve-book series, the Epigrams. I investigate the way in which key themes combine to create a pseudo-narrative for the reader to follow which connects not only individual books but the series as a whole. This twelve-book series creates an ’anti-epic’, something which is meant to be considered as a whole and read, and reread, as such. In the course of investigating the inter- and intratextual links within the Epigrams, we see how Martial’s corpus instructs its reader on how (and even where) to read the text. In doing so Martial is engaging with a literary discourse at the end of the first century on different patterns of reading. The key themes explored, oral sex and os impurum, food and dining, and a literary theme comprised of reading and writing, all form part of this programmatic literary instruction to the reader. I have identified the importance of ’orality’ within the Epigrams as part of the defined method of reading. Applying concepts from Reader-Response theory,and thinking about the way readers read, we can see that Martial’s books of epigrams are more than the sum of their parts.

5 citations

Book ChapterDOI
01 Jan 2002

5 citations

01 Jan 2005
TL;DR: Edgington et al. as discussed by the authors conducted a semester-long study on how composition teachers read and respond to student writing and found that composition teachers employed multiple reading strategies while responding to student texts, and these strategies were often influenced by contextual factors related to the classroom, student-teacher relationships, past preparation in the teaching of writing, and nonacademic influences.
Abstract: Author(s): Edgington, Anthony | Abstract: This article discusses results of a semester-long study on how composition teachers read and respond to student writing. Using protocol and textual analysis, along with interviews, the study focused on composition teacher reading strategies and what influences these teachers as the read and respond to student writing. From analysis of the data, I found that composition teachers employed multiple reading strategies while responding to student texts, and these strategies were often influenced by contextual factors related to the classroom, student-teacher relationships, past preparation in the teaching of writing, and nonacademic influences. I argue that the field of composition needs to devote more attention to how teachers read student papers and how these readings influence the comments we offer to students about their writing through stronger teacher preparation programs and by expanding our dialogues about response to include a focus on how teachers read student papers.

5 citations