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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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29 Aug 2018
TL;DR: A reflexao sobre o estilo como categoria heuristica da analise da autoria nos formatos seriados de ficcao televisiva: tal uso vincula essa categoria as dinâmicas sociais de atribuicao autoral, uma vez reconhecidas as instâncias de tomada de decisao em processos criativos and o funcionamento textual de tais obras as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Estabelecemos uma reflexao sobre o estilo como categoria heuristica da analise da autoria nos formatos seriados de ficcao televisiva: tal uso vincula essa categoria as dinâmicas sociais de atribuicao autoral, uma vez reconhecidas as instâncias de tomada de decisao em processos criativos e o funcionamento textual de tais obras. Avancamos assim a hipotese da conjuncao de questoes de metodo vindas de duas fontes, a saber: a observância a processos sociais da autoria (na definicao de agentes responsaveis e das dinâmicas sociais de reconhecimento) e aquelas que se associam as gramaticas textuais dos formatos seriados (na escritura dramaturgica e nos principios da encenacao audiovisual).
5 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that the recent divide between the research programs of cognitive and unnatural narratology is a new expression of a profound methodological schism, arguing that scholars in the cognitive camp have tended to treat interpretation as an object of study (i.e., investigating the interpretive process), while those in the unnatural field typically treat it as a method of study.
Abstract: Narratology and literary studies have always had ambivalent attitudes toward interpretation. This article proposes that the recent divide between the research programs of cognitive and unnatural narratology is a new expression of a profound methodological schism. Reviewing the status of interpretation in cognitive and unnatural approaches to narrative, we contend that scholars in the cognitive camp have tended to treat interpretation as an object of study (i.e., investigating the interpretive process), while those in the unnatural field typically treat it as a method of study (i.e., practicing interpretation in the study of narratives). Relatedly, whereas cognitive narratology assumes continuity between the interpretive processes operative in narrative understanding and the rest of life, the unnatural approach emphasizes discontinuity between fiction (reading) and the everyday. To show how these different conceptual underpinnings feed into contrasting academic practices, we supplement this theoretical overview with a double case study of Hans Christian Andersen’s short story “ The Shadow” (“Skyggen”). Taking advantage of our diverse disciplinary backgrounds, we offer one “interpretation” from a cognitive perspective and one from an unnatural narratological perspective, followed by metaresponses to each other’s responses. By setting up a theoretical and methodological dialogue, we highlight the nature of the differences between the two approaches while also looking for possible sites of overlap and cooperation.
5 citations
01 Jan 2005
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors propose a method of disassembling a set of disassembly points, called DISSERTATION, which is based on disassemblage-of-dispersal.
Abstract: OF DISSERTATION
5 citations
TL;DR: The role of the real reader was not central to narratology until its constructivist phase, which started about a decade ago as discussed by the authors, and the role of real reader has not yet become central to narrative processing.
Abstract: If only because they are very often interested in interpretations that turn detailed formal aspects into meaning, theorists of literary narrative have always considered their object of investigation in terms of its effect on an ideal reader. Even reception aesthetics, as practiced byWolfgang Iser (, ), boiled down to a hermeneutics in which this ideal audience took the form of a readerly role determined by the text. Despite early studies into the cognitive dynamics of the reading process byMeir Sternberg () and Menakhem Perry (), the role of the real reader did not become central to narratology until its constructivist phase, which started about a decade ago. There is, however, a serious problem with this approach. Although constructivist narratologists, such asAnsgarNünning, investigate ‘‘the cognitive activity through which observers create subjective models of the world they regard as actual’’ (), they mostly refrain from empirical testing, perhaps because they simply have not been trained for this kind of research. As a consequence, the empirical study of narrative processing has largely been left to social psychologists, whose interest in the specific workings of literary narrative has been very limited. Representative contributions to the field, such as by Gordon H. Bower and Daniel G. Morrow () and Richard Gerrig (), indicate that studies of narrative in social psychology are mainly concerned with relatively short and ‘‘simple narra-
4 citations
TL;DR: Sue Bridehead, along with other characters in and some readers of Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure, finds something about Arabella irresistibly attractive, even though both Sue and the readers have every reason to dislike Jude's coarse, selfish, troublesome wife.
Abstract: Sue Bridehead, along with other characters in and some readers of Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure, finds something about Arabella irresistibly attractive, even though both Sue and the readers have every reason to dislike Jude's coarse, selfish, troublesome wife. Arabella is responsible for much of Jude's and Sue's troubles, preventing their marriage multiple times and interrupting their lives repeatedly. She is crass and lewd and has no sympathy whatsoever for Jude's higher goals and ambitions; as Jude puts it, there is "something in her quite antipathetic to that side of him which had been occupied with literary study and the magnificent Christminster dream" (84). Readers are invited by Jude, Sue, and Hardy himself to resent Arabella's disruptions and unruly presence. Why might a reader resist this invitation to condemn Arabella? What could readers possibly find attractive about Arabella?
4 citations