28/9/06 - English Literature - The Role of the Reader

The term 'reader' is a loose term. But what does this concept mean? Identity of reader? Relationship to text, author, the world, etc?

Structuralists and poststructuralists. Counter-intuitive texts.

The House was Quiet and the World was Calm by Wallace Stevens (1947). The text, the reader's mind and the world beyond. No boundaries between them. Intimate and mystical process of reading. The Mirror and the Lamp (about Romantic poetry). M. H. Abrams.

Universe
Artist - WORK - Audience

Each element can be put into centre.
E.g. Work - objective meaning. It is an art in itself. What does the text mean?
Artist - expressive theory. What did the author purpose?
Universe - memetic theory. Mirrors social values. Outside reader's mind.
Audience - pragmatic theory. How readers bring assumptions to text.

Freund: "Such a model always places text in the middle of the diagram.

Shannon-Weaver model.
Source -> Encoder -(channel)> Decoder -> Receiver (meaning)
So, Author -(writes)>Text -(reads)> Reader

What did the author mean? How does the reader interpret?

Validity of linear model. Reverse arrows?
Mediation of meaning through text/discourse.

New criticism.
Two fallacies:
1) Intentional (author's thoughts and aims)
2) Affective (reader's response)
Internal structure (objective) has nothing to do with anything outside itself. Not dynamic.

1) Intentional. E.g. Wordsworth. have to read his other works, biography, etc. to understand the meaning of one poem.

2) Affective. All meanings are legitimate. subjective. "In that direction lies madness." Irrelevant fallacy?

Wimsatt and Beardsley, The Affective Fallacy, 1954.
Intentional fallacy ends in biographical relativism.
Affective fallacy ends in impressionism and relativism.

T.S. Eliot, The Function of Criticism, 1923.
Critic = reader.
No subjectivity in criticism, just a search for scientific objectivity.

Roland Barthes, The Death of the Author, 1968.
Intentionality is false. Locus of meaning is with reader. Thus 'death of the author'. Author's intention irrelevant. Originality and genius are impossibilities. All texts are fabrics of other texts. Extreme?

Where does literary meanings lie? The mind of the reader? Inscribed in text? Consciousness and phemonemology world outside.

To what extent is a reader the agent of meaning in a text? Or is he passive?

Kinds of reading:
Passive
Active
Intended
Reciprocal

Intended
J. Hawthorn, Unlocking the Text, 1987.
Intended reader... the author must have a notion of who his audience is before he can write. Problematic; exclusively a reader int he text. Extension of new critic formula?

Atwood imagined a masculine audience. Later maintained her reader was a woman. This idea of intended reader has some validity but also limitations.

But canonical texts have been read by non-contemporary people.

Passive
Louis Althusser, Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses, 1969.
Interpolation, a process occurring as a reader reads a text. Reader is a 'subject' to the text. Act of reading only gives 'illusion' of freedom. Pessimistic view of reading. Reader never active.

Georges Poulet, Criticism and the Experience of Interiority.
Gives meaning to phrase "I got lost in a book". New relationship between subject and object. Paradox, states text is hypnotic, draws you in. Advocate of passive reader... "[the reader] becomes the prey of language..."
But does this theory apply to reading a manual? He refers mostly to novels and poetry.

Active
Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism, 1993.
Should see texts suspiciously. Look for gaps in text - what it doesn't tell us rather than what it does. No fixed/intentional meaning. Various manifestations at different times.

Reciprocal
Margaret Atwood, Second Words, 1982.
Reading changes the reader. Instability of consciousness in reader. Made into a different person. Everything in flux, dynamic, changing, fluid.

Back to Wallace Stevens's poem. Identifies with Poulet. Getting lost in reading. Ranges freely over many theories related above. Intellectually challenging.