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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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TL;DR: This article argued that secondary English teachers are to be effective in teaching literature, they need to be aware of the systematic ways of viewing and interpreting literature that have come into being in the past 50 or 60 years.
Abstract: The minimal training of English teachers is usually compressed into a four year curriculum during which participants must meet general education requirements, teacher training requirements-including such time-demanding ones as early field experience and student teaching-and the requirements of the academic major. Because of the nature of the secondary teaching, they are usually encouraged to take broad survey courses, one or two genre courses, a course that focuses on a major author-usually Shakespeare-, a course in advanced expository writing, and one in the history of the language or in modern descriptive grammar. The major area of study omitted from most teacher training programs in English is critical theory, which is assuming a position of increasing importance in most college and university English departments. If secondary English teachers are to be effective in teaching literature, they need to be aware of the systematic ways of viewing and interpreting literature that have come into being in the past 50 or 60 years. Much of the impetus for a reassessment of critical theory in the United States is an outgrowth of the so-called Fugitives of Vanderbilt University who, in the 1920s and 30s, shifted the critical focus in this country from a concern with the life and times of authors to teaching methodologies which stressed close reading of literary works and developed modes of interpretation based on close reading. Even before the Fugitives were well known, Arthur Hobson Quinn of the University of Pennsylvania produced a critical study of the works of Edgar Allan Poe which, for the first time in Poe scholarship, ignored
2 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, text analysis from the perspectives of narratology and expansive semiotics is presented. But the analysis is restricted to a single sentence and does not cover the entire corpus.
Abstract: (1998). Text analysis from the perspectives of narratology and expansive semiotics. European Journal of English Studies: Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 238-255.
2 citations
12 Dec 2009
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyze Hasan Elahi's project "Tracking Transience" (2003-) and relate it to Sophie Calle's performance “Detective” (1980) while discussing how we can understand the mobile phone as a device that is capable of creating a 'database shadow' of the owner.
Abstract: Based on discussions of hybrid space as well as the concepts of the database and archive art, the paper analyzes Hasan Elahi’s project “Tracking Transience” (2003-) and relates it to Sophie Calle’s performance “Detective” (1980) while discussing how we can understand the mobile phone as a device that is capable of creating a ‘database shadow’ of the mobile phone owner. Elahi created “Tracking Transience” after he was held back by the FBI in 2003 on suspicion of being a possible terrorist; by consulting the website trackingtransience.net everyone now has access to the data generated by Elahi and his mobile phone, which meticulously tracks his life. However, even though Elahi’s life seems to be thoroughly and intimately documented with pictures of e.g. every eaten meal and every visited restroom, we are clearly not getting the full picture. Consequently, despite having been granted access to an enormous amount of data, we are left with a feeling of following a shadow or maybe a mirage. This paper explores how the mobile phone affords this playing hide-and-seek, and the way that it provides shelter from the inspecting eye.
2 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines works by Trivizas that manifest themes of power and authority, including The Braying Donkey, Loukoulos Eats Pebbles, Hara and the Goudoun, and The Flying Saucer, where carefree protagonists find themselves bound to impressively higher levels of power which they finally manage to overturn.
Abstract: Abstract:The article examines works by Eugene Trivizas that manifest themes of power and authority. The picturebooks chosen for discussion exemplify the subversion of structures in ways that destabilize social and cultural practices and foreground the questioning of adult discourse. For example, in The Braying Donkey, Loukoulos Eats Pebbles, Hara and the Goudoun, and The Flying Saucer, carefree protagonists find themselves bound to impressively higher levels of power which they finally manage to overturn. These texts are read as allegories of subverting hegemony, supplying children-readers with temporary release from adult domination. The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig is read as a parody of ethnocentric narratives that invite the reexamination of ideological and historical codes. Special focus is given to Ignatius and the Cat, a picturebook that toys with the dynamics between authority and children through the metaphors of reading books and the library as an institution. Both images aim to deride adult knowledge and subvert prescribed notions about the virtues of books. Overall, Trivizas's fiction repudiates the imposition of ideas, offering children the critical tools to become active readers.
2 citations