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.
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TL;DR: In this article, the German poet Rolf Dieter Brinkmann (1940-75) was described as "a man who both in his life and his writing refused to be inhibited by a proper or customary way of behaving".
Abstract: Introduction"If I had a machine gun, I would shoot them down now"1 (Spath 1989, 42). In his short life, the German poet Rolf Dieter Brinkmann (1940-75) was never in the habit of mincing his words. The vitriolic words above, directed at the literary critics Rudolf Hartung and Marcel Reich-Ranicki during a 1968 function organized by the Berlin Academy of the Arts, are typical of a man who both in his life and his writing refused to be inhibited by a proper or customary way of behaving. Even if it would be an exaggeration to claim that those present at the Berlin Academy could be grateful that no weapon was to hand, it would be fair to say that particularly in Brinkmann's later poems he does appear to spray words with all the tact of a machine gun. It is not difficult to imagine, for instance, how nonplussed West German critics must have been when they encountered a poem in the 1975 Westward 1&2 collection, in which they were asked to muse on the sight of Hitler and his mistress, Eva Braun, performing oral sex on one another. Certainly, it would never have occurred to them that such spontaneity, such an apparently reckless treatment of serious subject matter, could be part of an ethical project. However, this is precisely what I will be arguing in this article. For Brinkmann (or rather, his implied author), ethics meant much more than etiquette. In fact, it meant freeing himself and the reader from the demands of etiquette, by means of spontaneity, even if this spontaneity was not always as violently controversial as in the example cited above.Spontaneity was perhaps the keyword in the Beats' aesthetic philosophy. It expressed a will to dissociate themselves from a European literary tradition they found tiresome, and to reject the assents and conformities of post-war American society. Kerouac was especially insistent on the importance of spontaneity and even suggested that spontaneous writing was the only ethically valid kind:If you don't stick to what you first thought, and to the -words the thought brought, what's the sense of bothering with it anyway, what's the sense of foisting your little lies on others? What I find really "stupefying in its unreadability" is this laborious and dreary lying called craft and revision. (Kerouac 1959a,72)This mode of writing, apparently only committed to unadulterated honesty, had an undeniable influence on a generation of young German authors equally eager to break away from the European literary tradition, as well as from the assents and conformities of their own society. The writing of Kerouac and other Beats opened their eyes to the possibility of a literature quite unlike anything Germany had to offer2.What I wish to examine in this article, however, is not the direct influence of the Beats on Brinkmann, but how he adapted spontaneity as an ethical principle in his own writing. Thus I will look at the German poet as one reverberation of Beat writing, thereby exploring the relationship of spontaneity and craft or premeditation referred to by Kerouac.In my first section, I will consider whether this relationship need be as antagonistic as Kerouac suggests. Are there not many contexts in which spontaneity and predetermination can be fruitfully combined? Does not the act of writing always require a degree of craft, even if an author claims to be committed only to spontaneity as Kerouac does? In what ways can a text be spontaneous? Having dealt with the problematic nature of spontaneity in relation to literature, I will turn in my second section to the term "ethics." Here I will make it clear that my conception of ethics departs from the conventional understanding of the term. While ethics has usually been viewed as the adherence to predetermined values, I will use the term to denote rather an openness that serves to question precisely those values. By the end of this second section it should be clear how spontaneity can also be ethical.In order to explain why spontaneity is of such importance in Brinkmann's texts, I will then look at the historical context in which they were written. …
3 citations
01 Jan 2011
TL;DR: The authors examine how infelicities around The Issues are read as addressivity and used to cast candidates as social types (e.g., "flip-flopper") and compare this kind of ascribed performativity with the rigid performativity of verbal taboo.
Abstract: In televised debates in US electoral politics, behavior before The Issues is scrupulously monitored, so much so that even a candidate's dysfluencies can be perilous, often registering to commentators as 'avoidance' and spurring them to speculate about addressivity, about which category of implied voter the candidate's avoidance was "to" and "for." Focusing on the 2007-2008 pri- mary debates and post-debate coverage, I examine how infelicities around The Issues are read as addressivity and used to cast candidates as social types (e.g., "flip-flopper"). I situate these critical readings in relation to the political mar- keting industry and compare this kind of ascribed performativity with the rigid performativity of verbal taboo. (Keywords: Language, taboo, addressivity, politics, stance, authenticity, branding)
3 citations
Dissertation•
29 Sep 2014
3 citations