8. Wolfgang lser1
[1. The key to Iser citations is: AR: The Act of
Reading (1978, original 1976); and IR:, The Implied Reader (1974,
original 1972); plus LL: Lesen auf dem Lande (Hömberg and Rossbacher
1977). Iser repeats extensive passages verbatim not only from book to book, but
within the same book (IR), hence the multiple citations. I have tried to use
cutting techniques to lend the quotes a smoother form. Note the dilemma of
translating "Wirkung” as “effect or “response" when the German
includes both (AR ix).]
Among the critics who are strongly concerned with reading, Wolfgang
Iser's approach is rather distinctive. His major sources include phenomenology
and gestalt psychology, as well as aesthetic theories derived from these. His
approach is correspondingly mentalistic, attributing lesser importance either to
the observed behaviour of literary participants or to the surface text of the
literary work. He envisions an elaborate mental construct elicited by the work
and subjected to continual transformations as reading proceeds. The utopian
aspect of this process, though not expressly acknowledged by lser, lies in its
power to restructure the reader's awareness and in its fundamental openness.2
[2. Though he is evidently conversant with the Frankfurt school, Iser uses the
term “utopian" only pejoratively for what is too good or remote to be
possible (IR 135, 150, 189; AR 229).]
In his earlier book (IR), surveying “patterns of communication from
Bunyan to Beckett,” Iser's “theoretical ideas" are mainly “developed
through examples” which he uses again in the later book (IR iii; AR xif). His
principles may have been influenced by this selection of texts that evidently
inspire him. Being mainly transitional works designed to break away from
prevailing conventions and expectations, they cannot provide a complete
cross-section. Literature as a whole is made out to be more creative and
demanding than conventional works would suggest. Such a tendency is common in
theoretical criticism, but should alert us to the utopian drift in describing as
normal or appropriate the proceedings of intensely active and progressive
authors or readers, and in making a critic such as Iser himself the test case.
Like Culler, Iser feels that "the traditional expository style of
interpretation has clearly had its day" (AR 10). (He claims his own are
"not meant as interpretations," but as “illustrations," AR xi).
“Through interpretation, literature is turned into an item for consumption”
-- a “fatal” outcome “for the text" and “for literary
criticism" (AR 4). “To impose one meaning" as “the right, or at
least the best, interpretation" is a “trap” that discounts
“subjective contributions and context" (AR 18F). “Literary texts"
get "reduced to the level of documents” (AR 13). “At least since the
advent of “modern art,” the referential reduction of fictional texts to a
single “hidden” meaning” “belongs to the past” (AR 10). Iser admits,
however, that the “historic and invalid” “norm of interpretation” whose
“demise” he announces enjoys “continuing application" “right up to
the present” (AR 6, 3, 12, 14).
The historical evolution of this state of affairs has been complex.
“Classical norms” like “the totality, harmony, and symmetry of parts"
“guarantee a high degree of assurance," support the “building" of
“consistency," and “make the unfamiliar accessible if not
controllable" (AR 15, 17f). As "modern art” "reacts
against" those “norms," "interpretation" tries to save the
situation by "taking over" “the old claims of art" to be
“universal" and “closing its eyes to the historical break manifested by
modern art," or "describing” the latter as “decadent” (AR 11ff).
Such "interpretation” is a form of refuge-seeking -- an effort to reclaim
the ground which has been cut from under" the “readers” (IR 233).3
[3 This verdict, like a number of others I will cite, is passed upon a
specific work, in this case Joyce's Ulysses, so that I cannot tell how
generally it applies. But many such assertions are delivered as generalizations
about art, literature, life, reality and so on; and lser expressly wants his
“interpretations” understood as “illustrations” of "theoretical
ideas" (AR xi).] “The absolutist claims of art have tended to dwindle,
while the expository claims of interpretation have become more and more
universal." Hirsch's method (Ch. 7) is a culmination of the latter trend.4
[4. However, lser believes, like Hirsch, that “meaning and significance are
not the same thing," the former being “intersubjective" and the
latter having "many forms” (AR 150f). But then Iser's concept of
"meaning” as “the referential totality which is implied by the aspects
contained in the text" is far broader than Hirsch's "verbal
meaning”.]
Iser considers it “far more instructive" to attempt “an analysis
of what actually happens when one is reading a text," as “the text comes
to life" and "begins to unfold its true potential" (AR 19).
“The traditional form of interpretation" "set out to instruct the
reader" and “tended to ignore both the character of the text as a
happening and the experience of the reader” (AR 22). Iser contends, again like
Culler: "the interpreter" should undertake “not to explain a work,
but to reveal the conditions that bring about its various possible effects”
(AR 18). One should "elucidate the potential meanings of a text, and not”
“restrict himself to just one” (AR 22, 18). "It is time now to change
the vantage point and turn away from results produced" toward the text's
“potential” to “trigger the re-creative dialectics in the reader” (AR
30). In this manner, “a theory of aesthetic response” ought to
"facilitate intersubjective discussion of individual interpretations"
(AR x). “Any one actualisation can be judged against the background of others
potentially present in the textual structure of the reader's role" (AR
37)...
The usual “pronouncements" of “literary critics” “invoke”
either “the contemporary reader,” “reconstructed” from “documents'; or
else “the ideal reader,“ who “cannot be said to exist objectively” (AR
270. The “ideal” one “tends to emerge from the brain” of “the
critic” (AR 28). “An ideal reader is a structural impossibility" as
someone “able to realize in full the meaning potential of the fictional
text” “independently of his own historical situation” (AR 280. Even if it
could be achieved, such an “exhaustive” “result would be total consumption
of the text” and “ruinous for literature” (AR 29). Or, the “ideal
reader” might be defined as having “an identical code to that of the
author” and “sharing” the latter's “intentions”; but
“communication-would then be quite superfluous” (AR 280. A similar problem
applies if “the author himself” is asserted to “be his own ideal
reader,” since the author “does not in fact need to duplicate himself (AR
29). Besides, this assertion is “frequently undermined by the statements
writers have made about their own works."
"The “real” reader" is also set aside, that is, relegated
to the “history of responses” (AR 27, 29), as studied by Jauss (Ch. 10).
Iser prefers to deal with “the implied reader”: “a construct”
“in no way to be identified with any real reader" (AR 34, my emphasis).
Nor does it “refer” to “a typology of possible readers” (IR xii).
Instead, “the implied reader” is based on “the structure of the text”
and “embodies all those predispositions necessary for a literary work to
exercise its effect” (AR 34). “Thus the concept" "designates a
network of response-inviting structures which may impel the reader to grasp the
text.” This “textual structure anticipates the presence of a recipient
without necessarily defining him." “The real reader is always offered a
particular role to play,” “even when texts deliberately appear to ignore”
or “exclude him.” "The reader is stylized” by “being given
attributes he may either accept or reject” (IR 114). His “role” is
“potential, not actual,” allowed to “make his choice” within “a
framework of possible decisions” (IR 55).
lser is anxious to demonstrate that “the structure of the text allows
for different ways of fulfilment” (AR 37, e.d.; cf. AR 29, 118, 231; IR xiii,
56, 281, 293). His central argument comes from phenomenology (though we see it
also in deconstruction),5 [Lentricchia (1980:159) remarks that
critics fascinated in the 1960s by strains of phenomenology” readily
“shifted to post-structuralist direction and polemic” -- de Man, Hillis
Miller, and Hartman, plus Edward Said and Joseph Riddel.], namely the
unattainable nature of stability and completeness in either life or literature.
Human awareness is everywhere beset by "multiplicity” and
“multifariousness” (IR 89, 186, 203, 278; AR 125, 49, 76). “Empirical
situations” are “generally too complex” for “applying one set formula”
(IR 45). The “multifarious possibilities” of “human nature cannot be
reduced to a single hard-and-fast principle” (AR 76). “Humanity never
coincides completely with any of its historical manifestations” (IR 183).
“If reality is nothing but one chance track, then it pales to insignificance
beside the vast number of unseen and unfulfilled possibilities” (IR 206).
“The mode of conduct demanded by convention” is “just one special case out
of many possibilities,” or "one restricted, pragmatically conditioned
form of human reality” (IR 156, 163).
Such theses lead to a corollary for "all literary texts":
“the potential text is infinitely richer than any of its individual
realizations" (IR 280). “Each actualisation” “represents a selective
realization” (AR 37). The "concept of the implied reader" is
therefore offered as the “frame of reference within which individual responses
to a text can be communicated," and hence as a “transcendental
model" for "describing” "the structured effects of literary
texts” (AR 38).
To stress the urgency of his approach, Iser almost outdoes the
deconstructionists in insisting that “indeterminacy is irreducible" and
“reality" “unexplainable” (IR 221). He obsessively evokes “the
indeterminability” of “all phenomena"; “the “intangibility” of
"observable reality'; "the impermeable potential of human reality';
"the unplumbable depths of the self'; “the impenetrability of human
motivation"; “the unfathomableness of human actions and reactions";
“the imponderability of history"; “the imponderability out of which
speech arises'; and so on (IR 221, 212, 192, 256, 152, 92, 243; AR 193). We
might detect the influence of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, for whom the
"world" is "experienced" as "an open totality, the
synthesis of which is inexhaustible" (1962: 219) (IR 226, 281). When Iser
proclaims "the impenetrability of the reader's subjectivity” (AR 124), he
even seems to disavow his own project of describing the mentations of reading.
Literature both designates the infinitude of humanity and reality and
counterbalances it with organizational techniques. The very act of reading
offers the “experience of a reality which is real precisely because it
happens” (IR 227). “Since his reactions are real, the reader” gains “the
impression” that the “fictional" "world" is a
"reality” (IR 113). “The unfolding of the text as a living event”
creates "the impression of life-likeness” (IR 290). These theses suggest
why Iser emphasizes processes more than results: in his model, the reader's
activities offer the most direct contact with reality.
So paradoxically, “fiction” can make “facts” “probable” and
engender "the illusion" of “reality” (IR 92). The content of
“fiction” offsets “the incomprehensibility of reality" and of
"the ego,” and “the apparent senselessness of everyday life" (IR
268, 197). “Indeterminability is only to be removed by means of fiction” (IR
221). “The continual invention of images" is a “means of coping with”
“a basic dilemma of life": “we do not know what it means to be
alive" (IR 266f). Whereas "historical reality is continuous and
indeterminable,” “fiction permits “integration,”
"self-containment,” "completeness,” "concord,"'6
[6. On the notion of “concord” in “fiction," see Kermode (1967).] and
“consistency,” as shown for example by “the nineteenth-century realistic
novel" (IR 100, 236, 264, 93; AR 225). “No literary text relates to
contingent reality,” “but to models or concepts of reality, in which
contingencies and complexities are reduced to a meaningful structure” (AR 70;
cf. Blumenberg 1969; Schmidt 1973).
However, literature can just as well adopt the converse approach and try
to seem “realistic" by presenting “chance associations" (IR 68).
“By constantly varying the angle of approach," “the potential range of
the “real-life” world" can be ”conveyed” (IR 194).7 [7.
Iser vows that “constant varying” is the “only" way to
“convey” this (IR 194). But surely the common sense notion of the
“real-life world” denotes precisely what is relied upon not to vary from one
observation to another (cf. Gombrich 1960). I would raise the same reservation
against Merleau-Ponty's vision (shared by lser) of “the world" as an
“open totality” (IR 281).] Through an “array of possible
conceptions," “the reality of everyday life will come alive in a
corresponding number of ways” (IR 68, 232f).
As these remarks indicate, whether literature seeks reality through
integration or dispersal, the dynamics of the reader's experience constitute the
rewards of literary communication -- a factor that may render more palatable
Iser's portrayal of "the meaning of the text" as “not a definable
entity, but” “a dynamic happening” (AR 22). If "the production and
subsequent negation of fictions" is “the condition for establishing an
open situation as regards life in general,” “the usefulness of fiction
cannot be dispensed with” (IR 268). “Human potentials" can only be
brought to light by literature, not by systematic discourse" (AR 76). A
reader can "exercise" his “emotional" and "cognitive”
“faculties," gain “an enhanced awareness" or “an expansion"
of “experience,” and “sharpen his sense of discernment" (IR xiii, 39,
59). “He can” “discover a new reality" or see “familiar reality
with new eyes," and "bring to light a layer of his personality that he
had previously been unable to formulate in his conscious mind" (IR xiii; AR
181, 50). He can "escape from the restrictions of his own social life"
and “discover deficiencies inherent in prevalent norms and in his own
restricted behaviour" (IR xiii). “In seeking a determinate meaning, the
reader loses possibilities of meaning," yet thereby "becomes aware of
the freedom” of “his faculty of understanding” (AR 177).
The necessarily provisional character of literature thus endows it with
life and lifelikeness. “Dynamism” is attainable via "virtuality,"
“indeterminate position,” "inevitable omissions,” or "inherent
non-achievement of balance" (AR 21, 70; IR 280, 287). The "absence of
finality” “drives us continually to go on being active" (IR 269).
"The number of blanks that break up the good continuation" determines
“the liveliness of the images” and “the vividness of the meaning” (AR
189, e.d.; cf. AR 192). "The shifting of perspectives” “makes us feel
that a novel is much more “true-to-life" (IR 288). “The split-level
technique conveys a far stronger impression of reality than does the
illusion" of “the novel corresponding to the whole world” (AR 112).
"The very fact” that “mythical patterns8 [8 In such
passages, "myth," like "archetype,” figures as an abstract
framework to be filled in many ways; Frye has a “very different
conception" (IR 230), presumably because the society devises his
archetype” more than the reader does. In Fiedler's conception, the
"unconscious” is the productive agent (NT 321).] cannot incorporate
everything endows the non-integrated material” with a “live tension” which
“makes us immediately aware” of “the modern world” (IR 200). “A
conversation” “so different from the normal familiar forms"
“provokes” “attentive involvement” (IR 154). “The “surprising"
“oddness" and “unexpectedness” of the .picture” “stimulate those
reactions that bring the character to life" (IR 41). “The characters seem
real” when the reader is “constantly under obligation to work out all that
is wrong with their behaviour” (IR 112; cf. IR 9). And so forth.
These strategies become particularly crucial in modern literature.
Whereas the “wealth of details" in “the realistic novel” had formerly
“reflected” the “world of experience,” “details no longer”
“stabilize the illusion of reality” (IR 198). But the newer techniques can
still elicit insightful outcomes. The “disoriented reader” "begins to
be aware of the elusiveness of reality” and can draw the “conclusion” that
“any claim to knowledge is an automatic reduction of the infinite and
discounts the changeability of phenomena” (IR 255, 208). “The construction
of the novel' can reveal “the fundamental fluidity of human conduct” and the
“unpredictability of the self” (IR 163). 9 [9. The novel
is the exemplary literary form for lser, as it is for Fiedler, Paris, Millett,
and Jameson. He extols “the novel” as “the genre in which reader
involvement coincides with meaning production,” ostensibly because it “was
concerned directly with social and historical norms” and thereby
“established an immediate link with the empirical reality familiar to its
readers” (IR xi). This technique “helped” them “understand” their
“own world more clearly.] A
mixing of "different styles” can fit “each style” to “one possible
facet of everyday reality” and “convey the potential range of the
“real-life” world" (IR 225, 194). Deliberate “irrelevance” can
"accentuate the conditional nature of all intentions" (IR 163). “The
senselessness of life" can be “transplanted into an experience for the
reader” (AR 222).
This line of argument suggests a history of literature in terms of how
the openness of reality is treated in various periods (compare Gombrich, 1960,
on painting). However, we would be dealing with idealized responses wherein the
readers appreciate variations in technique, even disturbing ones, and react in
appropriate and gainful ways. We would thus have a history of imperatives that
may or may not have been met in concrete instances. Recent empirical tests (e.g.
Mauser et al., 1972) reveal what the persistence of traditional interpretation
also signals, namely that many readers refuse the role offered by modernist
literature. They expect a clear-cut message or meaning and an integration of
reality already perfected for them by the author. Consequently, a history of
response is likely to uncover a diffusion of competing tendencies among
projected and actual ways of reading.
We can tell by now why Iser would feel that a “textual model cannot be
equated with the literary text, but simply opens up a means of access to it”
(AR 53). Such “models designate only one aspect of the communicatory
process” that has “two poles": “textual structures and structured
acts of comprehension" (AR 107; cf. AR 35, 163). “The text represents a
potential effect that is realized in” the reading process” (AR ix; cf. AR
21). If “literary texts take on their reality by being read,” the “must
already contain certain conditions of actualization” (AR 34).
"Rather than actually formulating meanings themselves,"
“literary texts initiate “performances'of meaning” (AR 27). “The
formulated text” “represents a pattern, a structured indicator to guide the
imagination of the reader” (AR 9). Moreover, “the structure of the
text" “must” “bring about” a “standpoint" “able to
accommodate all kinds of different readers" (AR 35, e.d.).
To depict what happens to the text, Iser presents the metaphor of an
"unwritten text” “constituted by a dialectic mutation of the written”
(AR 229; cf. IR 42, 44, 282f, AR 147, 182, 226). The author's
"formulated" version of the text shades off" "into a text
that is unformulated though nonetheless intended” (IR 31; cf. IR 42, 45f, 287,
294; AR 17, 46, 82, 99, 182, 225ff, 229). “The uniform meaning of the text”
and its “aesthetic value" are "not formulated” (AR 17, 82). The
“process whereby the reader formulates the unwritten text requires active
participation,” and “the formulated meaning becomes a direct product"
and “experience of the reader” (IR 45). Indeed, “the production” of the
“unformulated" “meaning of literary texts” “entails" “the
possibility that we may formulate ourselves, and so discover what had previously
seemed to elude our consciousness” (IR 294) -- another benefit of openness.
The notion of an “unwritten text" is plainly problematic. Iser is
acutely aware of this, the more so as every “reader-oriented theory" may
be accused of “uncontrolled subjectivism" (AR 23). A “theory of
aesthetic response” faces the “objection that it sacrifices the text to the
subjective arbitrariness of comprehension." He proposes several lines of
defense to disclaim the “arbitrary” (cf. AR 24, 85, 140, 195, 201f)..10
[10. Among the things Iser claims are not “arbitrary” are: “the lines
along which text is to be actualised"; the “equivalences" or
"reciprocal transformations" among “segments”; “the sequence of
positions in the time-flow of reading'”; and “the combination of signs made
present in the image” (AR 85, 185, 201f, 140).] One is that even traditional
“single-meaning” “interpretation” arises from a “sophisticated
subjectivity," and "would-be objective judgments" from a
"'private” foundation"; "the compilation of meaning” was
“simply" “taken for granted" (AR 23f). A second is that “the
very existence of alternatives makes it necessary for a meaning to be defensible
and thus intersubjectively accessible" (AR 230). A third is that “the
subjectivist element of reading comes at a later stage," “where the
aesthetic effect results in a restructuring of experience” (AR 24). The
"affective fallacy” does not apply to “a theory of aesthetic
response" concerned with the structure of the performance which precedes
the effect" (AR 27). The second and third defenses are not too
satisfactory, though, because they entail practical difficulties. Readers often
enough create meanings they couldn't defend, and exhibit no demarcation at the
point when they begin to be subjective.
The firmest defense therefore, and the one to which Iser devotes by far
the greatest care, is to demonstrate that "acts of comprehension are guided
by the structure of the text,” although "the latter can never exercise
complete control” (AR 24; cf. AR 108). The “indeterminacy arising out of the
communicatory function of literature” “cannot be without a structure” (AR
182). The "spectrum of actualisations" that can result from “the
interaction of text and reader” is "conditioned" by a "mixture
of determinacy and indeterminacy," and “such a two-way process cannot be
called arbitrary” (AR 24). “If communication between text and reader is to
be successful, clearly, the reader's activity must be controlled in some way by
the text" (AR 167). With such statements, Iser warily drifts back toward a
conception of the text as a guiding entity. "The written text must employ
certain modes in order to bring about and simultaneously guide the
conceivability of the unwritten” (AR 147).
A key point is that a “sameness of processes" underlies
“differences in realization" (AR 143). All readers are influenced by the
fundamentals of human awareness. Iser invokes the "mechanisms" and
“basic rules of human perception, " “the imaginative and perceptive
faculties of the reader,” “the structure inherent in all systems," and
the like (AR 98, 38, x, 71). "We cannot conceive without
preconception"; “pure perception is quite impossible” (AR 166).
“Consistency-building is the indispensable basis for all acts of
comprehension” (AR 125; cf. IR xiv). “Recognition” and “grouping” are
"elementary activities in reading" and “part of” "the
reader's" “natural disposition” (IR 228). Such assertions imply that
Iser's model is derived from general mental principles and is in that sense
realistic..Yet this strategy competes somewhat with his contention that the
literary experience is exceptional, as when it makes “the subject-object
division essential for all cognition and perception" “disappear" (AR
154, 135).12 [12.Starobinski (1973: 78) is cited for this view
(AR 135). But Jameson points out that “the adequation of subject to object”
is "virtually Hegel's intellectual invention” and recurs variously in the
theories of Adorno and Bloch (MF 44, 38, 141, 146). Bloch portrays this "adequation”
as a "Utopian fulfilment (MF 146), which seems more plausible than taking
it for granted, as Iser seems to do here. For Jameson, “a concrete
reconciliation between” “the subject and the world would be possible only in
a society in which the individual was already reconciledc in fact with the
organization of people and things around him,” which is why “Hegel's system
fails” (MF 49). lser has to admit that “the division between subject and
object” is in fact upheld by the traditional “critic,” whose
“expectations” are also attributed to “most readers of literary works”
(AR 9, 5).
Iser also appropriates the conceptions of gestalt psychology.
“Apprehension of the text is dependent on gestalt groupings,” during which
“the reader" “identifies the connections between signs” and thereby
"endows" them with their "significance” (AR 120f; cf. IR 40).
It “is essential to our own understanding" that “the “gestalt” of a
text normally takes on” a "fixed or definable outline" (IR 284).
“The gestalt” is not the true meaning of the text,” but “a configurative
meaning.” The “primary” or "initial open gestalt” can apparently
encompass "all referential contexts" of “the sign,” plus “all
ramifications”'; but it is soon succeeded by a
"closed" one that
increases “consistency” (AR 12Aff). The “interdependence” of the two
gestalts is “an intersubjectively valid structure,” even though the later
gestalt must inevitably be colored by our own characteristic selection
process" (AR 123; IR 284).
"Gestalt psychology” also supplies “the concepts of “schema
and correction"“ “developed” by Gombrich (1960) (AR 90). “The
schema functions as a filter which enables us to group data together,” so that
we can "grasp the infinite variety of this world of change” “The schema
reveals not only the economy principle, which gestalt psychology has shown to
regulate all our everyday perceptions, 13 [13 Yet Iser
stipulates that “in literature, the principle of economy is broken more often
than followed” (AR 186). but also a drastic and necessary reduction in the
contingency of the world,” that is, in the “unpredictability” of event
configurations (AR 90f, 163f). “The structure of the schema”
“dialectically” “balances” “economy” "against its own
increasing complexity” (AR 91). “When something new is perceived,” it is
captured and conveyed” by means of a “correction to the schemata,” that
is, a restructuring of points of significance" (AR 91f, e.d.). The
“imagination of the observer" is "set to work" to
"discover the motive behind the change in the schema” (AR 92). In such
ways, "the schemata of the text” "stimulate the reader" to
“establish the “facts" and “assemble a totality," but “he will
occupy the position set out for him” (AR 141).
The “sequence of schemata" is “built up” by a constellation
Iser calls the “repertoire" (AR 141). Its constituents are already
“familiar” to the reader, mainly “social and historical norms” and
"literary patterns and themes" (AR 69f, 191, 200, 211f; IR 34, 37,
182, 288). “The repertoire has” the “function of incorporating a specific
external reality into the text” so as to “offer the reader a definite frame
of reference” (AR 212). This “determinacy supplies a meeting point between
text and reader,” but the latter “must construct for himself the aesthetic
object” (AR 69, 107). “The reader's ideation" is “linked” to the
“thought systems” and “social systems” for whose "problems” the
“text" “attempts" an “answer” (AR 199, ix, 212, 79). These
“systems" are “recoded into a set of signals that will
counterbalance" their “deficiencies” (AR 74). The “conventions,
norms, and traditions" that enter “the literary repertoire” are thereby
“reduced," .modified," “depragmatised,” and “transformed”
(AR 69, 109, 184, 212). In this way, the "repertoire" "forms an
organizational structure of meaning" waiting to be “optimized by the
reader" "willing to open himself up to an unfamiliar experience” (AR
85).
Another aspect in mapping out the reading activity is its "temporal
quality" --according to Husserl (1928), "the only case where"
"the imagination" creates something truly new in ideation" (AP,
148). Since “the whole text can never be perceived at one time,"
"the reader must inevitably realize" "a potential time sequence
in every text” (AR 108; IR 280). The order of words is of less interest here
than are the "arrangement” of "perspectives" and the
“sequence of schemata,” “imaginary objects," or “images" (AR
10Off, 141, 227, 148, 203; cf. AR 97, 189; IR 280f). Unlike words,
“perspectives do not follow on in any strict sequence -- they are
interwoven" within "an uninterrupted synthesis of all time phases”
(AR 184, 149). The “basic types of perspective arrangement" can be ranked
according to whether and how one perspective is allowed to dominate the others
(AR 100-03).
lser portrays the reader maintaining a “wandering viewpoint"
"situated in a particular perspective during every moment of reading
but" "not confined to that perspective" (AR 114). “The
text" "passes through the reader's mind as an ever-expanding network
of connections" (AR 116). As the "viewpoint” “constantly switches
between the textual perspectives,” their “combination” “establishes”
“the reader's position” (AR 114). The “reciprocal spotlighting" of
"perspectives” creates the pattern of a “foreground" continually
"merging into the background," or of a "theme" becoming
current and then fading into the “horizon" (AR 148, 116, 96-102, 198ff,
203).
This process lends “the imaginary objects" their
"individualized" “identity" and "gives us the illusion of
depth and breadth” and hence “the impression" of "a real world”
by “producing the very conditions under which reality is perceived and
comprehended” (AR 148, 118, 116, 103; cf. IR 281). The "synthesis"
of the various “manifestations" of “the aesthetic object"
throughout “the journey of the wandering viewpoint” leads to an event Iser
likes to call the “transplanting" or “transfer of the text to the
reader's conscious mind” (AR 109, 135; cf. AR 38, 211, 226). This metaphor is
a bit mysterious, not merely because no actual change of location is involved,
but because what arrives in the “mind” is plainly not the text as such.
The “time dimension" of "meaning" being contemplated by
"the wandering viewpoint" is fraught with “transformations" (AR
148f). "The term “structure'" is used by Iser “in the sense
outlined by Jan Mukarovsky" (1967 [1941-48: 11): “energetic and dynamic,
" in a "ceaseless state of movement" and "'continual
transformations" (AR 85). For instance, “textual perspectives" and
"positions are set up and transformed by the structure of theme and
horizon," a process which generates "the aesthetic object” (AR 98,
198, 203, 205). Or, "familiar knowledge” is “transformed into material
for the exposition of that which had been hitherto concealed” (AR 227; cf. AR
169, 218, 227). Or, "events” are “transformed" "into the
"discovery of virtual causes,” a “process that endows the meaning of
the literary text with its unique quality” (AR 228). Or again, "expected
functions” are "transformed" “into blanks,” which are in turn
"transformed" “into stimuli for acts of ideation” (AR 208f, 194),
as we will be seeing in a moment. 14 {14. 'Stimuli” are
“sent out” by “every reading moment" and "evoke
perspectives" both “immediate” and “past" (AR 115f). This might
sound vaguely behaviourists if lser did not stipulate that “it'is the
prerogative of the receiver, not a characteristic of the stimuli, to decide
which differences shall be significant” (AR 119; Smith, 1971:133).]
All these changes befit lser's convictions
that “the aesthetic object is constantly being structured and restructured';
that "experience" occurs only “if our preconceptions have been
modified or transformed"; and that “the individuality of the text”
"depends largely on” the “transformation” of the “elements" of
“the repertoire” (AR 112; IR 262; AR 69). Indeed, “we" ourselves
“are to undergo" a “transformation” “in the act of reading" so
as to “become" "the author's” “image of his reader" (IR
30).
“The process of serial transformation” has
“a catalytic function: it regulates the interaction between text and reader”
“through a history” "actually produced in the act of reading,"
“the history of changing standpoints" that enables “the production of
new codes” (AR 212). Via a “serial” “restructuring of established
connections,” “everyday life can be experienced as a history of
ever-changing viewpoints" (AR 210). This history is divided into a
“past,” being the “background” or “horizon;" a “present,”
being the current “theme” or “moment of reading;” and a “future,”
being the “expectations" (AR 114, 116, 97, 99, 112, 11 5).15
[15 At one point, Iser says the "past” is “fading,” and at another
that is “not fading” (AR 112,149). Elsewhere, Cavell's (1969: 322) "presentness"
is described as a state when “the past is without influence, and the future is
unimaginable”; Iser includes this in his account of how “the subject”
.makes himself present to the text,” despite an earlier insistence on “an
uninterrupted synthesis of all the time phases” (AR 155f, 149).] "Reading
has the same structure as experience” insofar as “our entanglement”
“pushes” our “criteria of orientation" “into the past” and
“suspends their validity for the new present” (AR 132).
"Negation” intensifies this progression by making “the
familiar” "appear" “obsolescent” (AR 212f; cf. AR 70). As “the
reader's past experiences become marginal," “he is able to react
spontaneously” (AR 158). The reader is “actively involved" in
“synthesizing” “constantly shifting viewpoints” that “influence past
and future syntheses" (AR 97).
“Images” are further entities that “take on" a “time
dimension” and “are transformed through ideation” (AR 149). “Image” is
here defined as “the manifestation of an imaginary object," and is “a
hybrid” of “pictorial” and “semantic" (AR 140, 147). It "is
basic to ideation" and “endows" the “absent” “with
presence" (AR 137). “In reading literary texts, we always have to form
mental images” via “ideation.” "The instructions provided stimulate
mental images, which animate” what is “implied, though not said” (AR 36).
“The sequence of mental images” “leads to the text translating itself into
the reader's consciousness" and permits “the text” to “come alive in
the reader's imagination” (AR 36, 203).
In this fashion, “the liveliness of images” supports “the vividness
of meaning” (AR 189). “The process of image-building begins" "with
the schemata of the text," works through “theme and significance,”
“gives at least the illusion of perception,” and “eventually results"
in the “reader" "constituting the meaning of the text” (AR 141,
147,
176). Indeed, Iser avers that "the meaning can only
be grasped as an image” produced by "the imagination of the reader” (AR
9). This claim seems overstated, but as the previous quotes reveal, Iser's
concept of “image" -- etymologically close to “imagination” --
designates much more than a mental picture. 16 [16 lser's
opposition between the “imagistix” and the “referential” (IR 9) appears
to me too strong, as does his claim that “imaginary objects” elicit a
“position” that “can never be subject to any frame of reference" (AR
150). That should make them unimaginable, at least for many readers (Gombrich
1960).]
All these temporal dynamics outlined so far help Iser account for the
potential of literary texts to be read over and over without loss of momentum.
“The structure-determined unrepeatability of meaning" enables “the
repeatability of the newness of the identical text” (AR 150). Since “a
second reading of the text” is “influenced” by “the originally assembled
meaning,” and “our extra knowledge” "results in a different time
sequence,” "a text allows and, indeed, induces innovative reading”
“on repeated viewings” (AR 149; IR 281). “Each concretisation of meaning
results in a highly individual experience,” “which can never be totally
repeated” (AR 149). The “change” of “the time dimension” also
“changes the images" and “the way" they "qualify and
condition each other in the time flow of our reading." “The literary
critic” needs to consider this situation when “using hindsight to analyse
the techniques which brought about the “first” meaning.”
To describe the “structures of indeterminacy” (AR 182), Iser presents
an elaborate spatial metaphorivs of emptiness, in which "gaps,"
“blanks, “gulfs,” “vacancies," and “empty spaces” cue the
reader to become active by completing them.17 [17. “Gaps,”
“blanks,” and “empty spaces” are apparently the same, since they are
used interchangeably, though the translator may have been careless (AR 167ff,
195, 198, 220; IR 226). But see Note 19 on “vacancies.”]
This model agrees with Merleau-Ponty's (1967: 73) remark that "the
lack of a sign can itself be a sign" (AR 169), and implies a hierarchical
reversal ranking absence over presence, as in deconstructionism (compare
Culler). The image of the reader “filling in a hollow form” is repeatedly
evoked (AR 143, 213, 216).18 [18 Sartre (1971: 207) too offers
this rather objectifying image, implying a rigid entity with a fixed shape and
capacity.]
The “empty spaces” act as a “vital propellant for initiating
communication” (AR 195). “Gaps” are "elements of indeterminacy"
where we can “use our imagination"; and “points at which the reader can
enter the text" to “create the configurative meaning of what he is
reading” (IR 283, 40; cf. IR 280). “The blank” “functions as an
elementary condition of communication” by "intensifying the acts of
ideation on the reader's part” (AR 189). “Gaps” “heighten our
awareness,” “give the reader motivation,” and “focus” his “attention
on the interaction between perception and reality" (IR 33f, 210). They are
also “textual positions” the “reader” can “fill with mental
images" (AR 226, 9, 189, 220). In sum, “an indeterminate, constitutive
blank” “underlies all processes of interaction" (AR 167). The text
looks like a Swiss cheese whose holes ferment the most nourishment.
Gaps
or "blanks" may “assume different forms" (AR 167). A
“gap" or "gulf” can appear “between” “two passages" or
“chapters”; “between illusion and reality”; between “images formed by
acts of perception”; "between unconnected allusions'; "between
monologue and overall situation”'; "between what the character does"
and “is'; “between the characters” actions and the narrator's comments';
and so on (IR 208, 226, 111, 210, 213, 162, 108). Other cues include:."asymmetry,
contingency,” “archetype," “non-description," “cuts,”
“interruptions," “unexpected directions," “abbreviations,”
“abrupt juxtapositions” or “suspension of connectability” among
"segments," “alternation of stylistic devices,”
“invalidation" of “norms," and “minus functions” (i.e.,
“nonfulfilled, though expected functions”) (AR 167; IR 230, 38, 213, 280; AR
195, 202; IR 213; AR 217, 209). When Iser suggests a correlation between “the
number of blanks" and "the number of different images,"
"segments,” or “minus functions" (AR 186, 209), a quantitative
measure of indeterminacy seems to be inferrable; but with so many diverse types,
counting blanks is hardly practicable, even if they are indeed “present in the
text” (AR 216); and Iser tells me no attempts have been made.
Iser enumerates three “functions of the blank," depending on
whether it occurs as an intersegmental space, a “large-scale framework, or a
tension between the current viewpoint and previous ones (AR 196ff). In their
first function, “blanks open up” a "network of possible connections”
between “segments of the literary text” (AR 196). As the “reader's"
“viewpoint” “wanders” and “switches" among “segments," it
“forms" “the referential field, “ “the minimal organizational it in
all processes of comprehension': “two positions related to and influencing
each other” (AR 197). "The segments of the referential field”
are then “given a common framework" wherein “the reader”
"relates affinities and differences" and " the “underlying”
“pattern" (AR 1970).
“The second function" now becomes active, because this
“unformulated framework” “is also a blank” “requiring an act of
ideation to be filled” (AR 198). “The third and most decisive function” is
the “blank” or “vacancy' created when the “theme,” that is, the
“viewpoint" in “focus,” becomes the “horizon" for the next
one.19 [19. Iser differentiates: “blanks refer to suspended
connectability in the text, vacancies refer to non-thematic segments within the
referential field of the wandering viewpoint" (AR 198).]
Thus, “blanks" “regulate" “the structure” of
“interconnections" that “produce” the “imaginary object”;
“control” “all the operations that occur within the referential field of
the wandering viewpoint”; and "guide" the “building" of
“the aesthetic object” out of “transformed textual perspectives” (AR
197f). In all these capacities, “the blank in the fictional text induces and
guides the reader's constitutive activity" (AR 202).
The division into form and content is mirrored in Iser's model by “two
basic structures of indeterminacy in the text-blanks and negations" (AR
183). Whereas “blanks” “organize the syntagmatic axis” “relating to
structure,” “negation" does the same for “the paradigmatic axis”
relating to “content" (AR 212, 215).20 [20. Yet Iser
clouds the distinction again when he pictures “negation” as being or
“producing" “blanks” (AR 212f, 215)]. Every “model of reality"
implies "a division" of the "possibilities” of "the
world” into “dominant” versus “neutralized and negated” (AR 71).
“The literary text interferes" by making this second category “its
dominant meaning” and negating" the "repertoire” of “familiar
knowledge" (AR 71f, 147, 217f, 227). “Literature applies itself” to
"the deficiencies" arising “automatically” because “all thought
systems are bound to exclude certain possibilities" (AR 73). “Carefully
directed partial negations” “bring to the fore the problematical
aspects" and encourage “a reassessment of the norm" that is
“retained as a background” (AR 213). The “text" thus “starts”
from “the borderlines of existing systems" and activates" what the
latter have “left inactivated” (AR. 72). The “text” “draws attention
to” “the system's limited abilities to cope with the multifariousness of
reality.” “Existing patterns of meaning” are accordingly “rearranged”
and “reranked."
Since “negation" “is formulated by the text,” Iser coins the
(confusingly similar) term "negativity” for the text's “unformulated
double” (AR 226), rather like the "unwritten text" already
described. This "negativity” forms the “unwritten base," and
“conditions" “the formulations of the text” by lending them
"multiple referentiality” (AR 226). This “expansion" is
“necessary to transplant them as a new experience into the mind of the
reader." In this way, "blanks and negations" paradoxically
“increase the density of fictional texts" (AR 225).
Such a wide range of powers is assigned to “negativity” that it
threatens to walk off with the whole show “as a basic constituent of
communication” and “an enabling structure" underlying both “the
interaction of text and reader” and “the invalidation of the manifested
reality" (AR 229f). It “makes possible the comprehension" resulting
from "constitutive acts of the reading process"; “traces out the
non-given by organizing things into meaningful configurations"; is “the
non-formulation of the not-yet-comprehended'; is both "the conditioning
cause" and "potential remedy" of “deformations";
"embraces both the question and the answer"; "gives rise to"
“the fecundity of meaning" that leads to the “aesthetic and so forth
(AR 226, 228ff).
As we see, the negative has many rewards. The "reader's constitutive
activity” has “blanks and negations” to thank for its “specific
structure” that “controls the process of interaction" (AR 170). “The
efficacy of the literary text is brought about by its evocation and subsequent
negation of the familiar" (IR 290). “Only when we have outstripped our
preconceptions" can we “gather new experiences” (IR 290; ef IR 58; AR
1310 -- an idea Jauss and Jameson also advance). The “reader” can
“perceive consciously” “the norms of society” in which he was
“unconsciously caught up"; and “his awareness will be all the
greater" if their validity" “is negated” (AR 212). “The
negation” requires that something “outlined but concealed by the text"
should "be formulated'; this process "draws the reader into the
text" and "away from his habitual disposition" (AR 218).
The reader now faces a “choice.” “If he adopts the discovery
standpoint, his own disposition” can “become the theme for observation; if
he holds fast to his governing conventions, he must then give up his
discoveries." “Balance is achieved when the disposition” undergoes a
"correction" and is "temporarily suspended.” Such “balancing
operations” "form the aesthetic experience offered by the literary
text" (AR 286). Others include “balancing” “consistency" or
"convergence" against "alien associations,"
"contradictions,” or “ambiguities'; and “integrating”
"illusion-building" with “illusion-breaking” (IR 286, 52; AR 129,
127).
"Balancing” to “establish consistency between contrasting
positions” is also said to support yet another mentalistic entity Iser terms
“the virtual dimension of the text” (IR 42; cf. IR 49). As we'd expect,
virtual themes” are “denoted” by "blanks and negations” (AR 22 5).
“The selections we make in reading produce an overflow of possibilities that
remain virtual” (AR 126).21 [21. If this “overflow” is
“eclipsed," “the text takes on a didactic tone” (AR 126f). The
treatment of didactic literature as a marginal type is covered below (p. 144).]
Indeed, Iser asserts that the "work" as such “must inevitably
be virtual,” “as it cannot be reduced to the reality of the text or the
subjectivity of the reader” (AR 21). “This virtuality" or
“indeterminate position” is deemed the source of the work's
“reality," “dynamism," and "aesthetic value” (IR 279; AR
21, 70; IR 275). These functions overlap with those claimed for “fiction,”
"unwritten text," “structure,” “wandering viewpoint," and
“negativity," as we have seen. So far, Iser's books present no grand
design in which all these concepts are precisely differentiated.
As we might have surmised by now, the typical gesture whereby the
theoretical critic offers his model as an account for the essential value of
literature has a special tension in Iser's case. He raises to the top of his
value scale the potential of literature to be indeterminate and destabilizing.
His aesthetics is correspondingly dynamic, defined “only through its
effects” (AR 70; cf. Kalivoda, 1970: 29). He consistently develops the view
that “the aesthetic quality" of “literary texts” “lies in" the
“structure” of “performances of meaning” (AR 27). The "aesthetic
object of the text” stems from “transforming” “textual perspectives
through a whole range of alternating themes and horizons” (AR 198; cf. AR 98,
203, 205). The “aesthetic experience” is an “operation,” “oscillating
between consistency and “alien associations" (IR 286). "Aesthetic
provocation” is aroused by “undefined and undefinable” “action” (IR
238). “Aesthetic, appeal" can be attained by “working out
alternatives,” “allowing” “latitude,” “compelling specific
reactions” "without expressly formulating them,” and not
“loading" “judgments” “in advance” (IR 118).
A particularly “essential quality of aesthetic experience" is
“the ability to perceive oneself during the process of participation"
when stimulated by “discrepancies” “produced during the gestalt-forming
process” (AR 133f). "Aesthetic"“ “designates a gap in the
defining qualities of language"; its “experience" is fostered by
“the gulf between illusion and reality” (AR 22; IR 111).
In exchange, lser misprizes whatever falls short of such standards. “If
a literary text organizes its elements in too overt a manner," "we as
readers will either reject the book out of boredom, or will resent the attempt
to render us completely passive” (AR 87). "The “continuously”
patterned text” gives an “impression of comparative poverty,” “as
opposed to the vivid complexity of the “impeded” text” (AR 189). The
“fulfillment of expectations” can render “literature" “totally
functionless” (AR 208). “Any confirmative effect” "is a defect in a
literary text” (IR 278). When “the reader's assumptions are confirmed,”
"tension is relaxed" and “he will invariably lose interest" (IR
141). An undersupply of “blanks” and “gaps” leaves only “minimal
scope" for the “participation” of the reader, who “feels the
“let-down” of banality” (AR 190; IR 214). Hence, “filling in the
“places of indeterminacy" can even "transform high art into
kitsch" (AR 174).
Marginal forms of literature are also characterized along these lines.
“The didactic text," as in “thesis novels," "propaganda, and
publicity,” “achieves its control mainly by restricting its blank references
to a simple yes or no decision'; "the wandering viewpoint switches far less
frequently" (AR 190f). "Light literature” “formulates" its
own “solution,” “confirms one's disposition," and is made to be
"totally consumed” (AR 46, 219, 29). “Trivial” “works"
“support prevailing systems,"22 [22. “The courtly
romance of the Middle Ages” did so, however, and was still “serious"
“literature" (AR 77). Jauss makes the same exception (AL 18), but Millett
finds only another evasion against genuinely improving the social status of
women (SX 50f), administer “an overdose of illusions,” and seek
“commercial success" by “controlling” the “proliferation of
blanks" and not “making too many inroads into the repertoire of norms and
values" (AR 77; IR 294; AR 191). They "offer nothing but a harmonious
world, purified of all contradiction” and “disturbances" of “the
illusion" (IR 284).
In his “concern” for “the interaction” "between text and
reader," Iser has scant reason to uphold a division between "right”
and “wrong” reading,” and he faults Ingarden for doing so (AR 210, 171).
The "aesthetic" “fecundity of meaning” is due precisely to the
lack of a "frame of reference to offer criteria of right or wrong" (AR
230). The “true meaning" of “language” in a “literary work" is
“what it uncovers" rather than “what” it "says” (AR 142).
“The text provokes continually changing views in the reader,” who “can
never learn from the text how accurate or inaccurate are his views of it"
(AR 166f; cf. IR 273).
Still, the very fact that Iser's model foresees particular activities for
the reader implies these may be more or less appropriate. Particular
qualifications must be met beyond just a “basic knowledge" and
“familiarity” in regard to “literary texts” (IR 187; AR 207). The
“optimization” of the “organizational structure of meaning"
"depends on the reader's own degree of awareness and on his willingness to
open himself up to an unfamiliar experience" or to “a creative
examination” of the self (AR 85; IR 290). "The real reader
"must" “adapt" and "'modify himself if the meaning he
assembles is to be conditioned by text and not by his own disposition";
"to exert a modifying influence” upon the latter is "ultimately the
whole purpose of the text" (AR 153).
So lser, who “doubts" whether "criteria of adequacy or
inadequacy" can be applied to “each reader's individual
concretization" (AR 171), introduces some anyway. The reader must do
certain things "if his viewpoint is to be properly guided,” or if he
“is to be manoeuvred into a position commensurate with the intentions of the
text" (AR 152, 213). He must welcome being “manipulated” and .reoiriented”
(AR 95, 152, 1250. Although “successful communication” “depends on the
reader's creative activity,” it also requires that "the text”
“control" that .activity,” activate the “reader's faculties of
perceiving and processing,” "establish itself as a correlative in the
reader's consciousness,” and elicit “changes in the reader's
projections" (AR 167, 107, 112).
Conversely, a “failure" of “interaction” comes from
"filling" a "blank exclusively with one's own projections"
(AR 167). Also disapproved is an undue "commitment to ideology," which
would make “the reader" "less inclined" "to accept the
basic theme-and-horizon structure of comprehension” (AR 202). Moreover, “the
reader cannot" “pre-establish the non-fulfilled function” so as to
"produce a unified evaluation of events" or "a consistent
attitude toward positions in the text” (AR 211). Otherwise, "the text
will always become senseless or abstruse.
Even more is demanded of the reader by modern literature. Its
requirements may exceed one's “powers" of “perception,"
“absorption," "vision," and “memory” (IR 231f, 225, 211).
“The reader" is likely to become “disoriented" when his
.expectations” are "productively destroyed” by “monstrous
things" or by “overprecision” (IR 255; AR 207). Though such effects are
no doubt part of the intention to foster an awareness of one's own “faculty of
understanding” (AR 177), readers might react quite differently. They might
take “shelter behind their preconceptions of meaning"; or “resist the
pressure" and see the work as “Chaotic and destructive'; and so forth (IR
262; AR 210).23 [23. Iser defends the “esotericism" of
“modern texts” as preferable to the "fulfilment of expectations”
that would render "literature" “functionless" (AR 208).]
As long as lser occupies the reader's role, such problems are not unduly
acute. He reads, for instance, Beekett's novel Murphy as "an attempt
to expose the truth behind the commonplace," and “to reveal the basis of
fiction through fiction itself” (IR 262). The opening sentence, "The sun
shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new," is taken as "a form
of words devoid of content and of function” (IR 262f). If in such cases
"the reader" tries “to supply the meaning which the author has
removed," “the whole thing becomes abstruse, but only so long as one
insists on regarding the novel as a representative portrayal of reality" (IR
263). Murphy's plan “to go into a lunatic asylum" and "go mad"
is read as a "representative" "withdrawal from his social
environment," perhaps into “the depths of his spirit," where
"'there was nothing but commotion. " Iser likens this to Merleau-Panty's
idea that "absolute self-evidence and the absurd are equivalent. "
Beckett's novel is thought to address "the synchronization of the ego with
itself” and to show that “no statement, not even a hypothetical one, can be
made about a reality that is detached from human perception” (IR 264). “Our
compensation for what cannot be perceived is the knowledge pretended by fiction,
which is “consciously faise" -- a thesis expressed in different terms by
de Man (Ch. 14).
This reading fits Iser's theoretical orientation very well, but may not
be representative for readers in general. We might be uneasy about the lack of
“empirical tests" for his "theory,” which he says could "help
to devise a framework” for "guiding empirical studies” (AR x). One
research group at the University of Salzburg took him at his word (Hömberg
& Rossbacher 1977, hereafter LL).24 [24. All quotes are my
translations. The book is available, if at all, from Fotodruck Frank,
Gabelsbergerstrasse 15, 8 Munich 2, West Germany.] They had ordinary citizens
from a rural Austrian area read a story by Christoph Meckel in instalments and
answer questions like "what happened?” and “what will happen?” The
story is set in an environment similar to that of the readers and depicts the
failure of an outsider to hold a job delivering baked goods to remote mountain
villages. The story “combines familiar narrative techniques with innovative
ones” (LL 70). But it had to be “shortened" and “simplified in
places," and "the narrator's reflection on the poetic was cut" --
just the material Iser would want to foreground.
The conventionally narrated first part of the story was “received
according to Iser's description of response potential” (LL 77). “Text
structure and reading-act structure did not diverge significantly” (LL 78).
This ratio changed when the outsider suddenly disappears and readers had to
predict what would happen. The actual course of the story, in which the outsider
falls into a state of mental disorientation narrated in a more modernise style,
was not guessed by any of the 181 readers, who mundanely imagined he'd run off
or been hurt in an accident. These predictions were construed to show an
"'imaginary resolution of deficient realities" and “a need for order
and normal behaviour" (LL 82).
The same tendencies appeared in the final retrospections about the
author's intention: to “show how a nonconformist can't fit in" (28% of
the readers); to “show the fate of a dreamer” (21%); to "show the lack
of understanding toward outsiders” (17%); to “show how a person rebels
against his monotonous job" (14%); and so on (LL 89). The main
"'message” of the story” was thus to make “the problem of the
outsider” show “the formation of norm and violation” “in our social
life" (LL 90) -- a reasonable confirmation of Iser's model. But the data
indicated that "some 49% of the readers had difficulties with the
“modernness” of the text” (LL 86). And making the protagonist a
“dreamer" seems to ignore the social message.
We thus return to a point raised before (p. 134): that lser's theses may
lead to a history of reading as a series of implied imperatives problematically
related to documented responses. This factor might provide a useful expansion of
perspective, especially if we assume, along with most of our critics, that
particular readers can actualize only some aspects of a literary work's
potential. In return, though, Iser cannot expect his own necessarily partial
reading to cover that potential. He needs a much broader framework.
He can obtain some guidance from the history of ideas. For example, he
traces the impact of the “seventeenth century" “doctrine of
predestination,” or of "eighteenth century" “associationist
psychology” and “Scottish empiricism," though he does not favor “an
aesthetics” “prominently” “derived and conditioned by philosophy rather
than by literature" (IR xiii, 78, 70, xif). 25 [25.
“Literature” differs from "philosophy” in “not making its
selections and its decisions explicit” (AR 74)] (cf. Ch, 2). Such ideas belong
to the “historical background" or "repertoire” which literature
"counterbalanced" (AR 130). “Such processes certainly occur more in
modern literature," as compared to “the classical norm” stressing
“harmonization” and “removal of ambiguities" (AR 130, 15). This focus
enables Iser's approach to deal with modernism expansion from work to context.
A "history of narrative prose” should above all uncover the
"literary devices" "built into the structure of the text to
stimulate the production of discrepancies" (AR 130). "Such processes
certainly occur more in modern literature," as compared to “the classical
norm” stressing “harmonization” and "removal of ambiguities" (AR
130, 15). This focus enables Iser's approach to deal with modernism better than
those of other critics like Fiedler or Hirsch. Since every work is at the time
of its appearance at least modern, if not expressly modernistic, this capacity
is a substantial gain.
lser's
literary history could also retrace the progression in techniques that steer
reader response. With "traditional texts," the "process" of
“forcing" “decisions" in the face of the “inexhaustible"
“was more or less unconscious, but modern texts exploit it quite
deliberately" (IR 280). “The transition to modern times” was marked by
“a fundamental questioning of identity,” and an “attack on the prevailing
myth of the self-sufficiency of the individual” (IR xiii). Reacting against
the “religious despair of the Calvinists” who upheld
“predestination," “the pattern of the eighteenth-century novel"
dealt with “human self-assertion" (AR 100f; IR xiii, 2, 4, 17f, 24). Yet
"novelists” remained “morally oriented" and “cast” the
“reader in a specific role” to “guide” him “toward a conception
of human nature and reality,” often issuing him “direct addresses" (IR
81, xiii, 29). “The segments of the reader's viewpoint consisted mainly of the
different character perspectives" “in a hierarchical pattern” (AR
203f). “The narrator” stayed “firmly on the top,” so that his
"perspective" "guaranteed” "the right appraisal” (AR
204).
"The end" of this approach was "marked” by a “complex
technique" to “induce the reader” "to take a fuller part in the
coordination of events” (IR 78). “The nineteenth-century reader," not
given a “part,” "had to discover” that “society had imposed a
part” and to assume "a critical attitude" (IR xiii). “The implied
author" was separated from “the unreliable narrator,” and “no
authoritative orientation” was "supplied” (AR 204f, e.d.; cf. Booth
1961).26 [26. Like Paris (PAF 16-20), Iser refuses to join the
“literary critics” such as Wayne Booth who “bewail” the “loss of the
narrator” (AR 207). What was lost was rather “an expectation” for
"some form of orientation” provided by “the traditional novel.”]
“The reader” was to be made “more ready and able to react” and to
“rise to the level of his own discoveries" in “a world” "grown
more complex” (AR 206). "Literature” undertook to “balance
deficiencies" in "conflicting religious, social, scientific systems of
the day" (AR 6).27 [27. This project made “the
critic” “a man of importance” in “the nineteenth century” (AR 6) --
surely a main motive for retaining the old style of interpretation (cf. p.
130).]
A further change ensued when literature entered “the modern
world," wherein “'we are denied direct insight into the meaning of
events” (IR 180). Works showed a corresponding rise in “the number of
blanks,” "negations,” and “unfulfilled qualities" (AR 206, 219,
172).28 [28. “Modern literature” is said to achieve
“greater determinacy” and yet to “increase” “the degree of
indeterminacy” (AR 171, 206).] "The modern novel thematizes”
“blanks" “in order to confront the reader with his own projections”
(AR 194). “The components" of “narrative techniques" are
“deliberately revealed" so as to encourage "the discovery” of
"the functioning of our own faculties of perception" (IR xiv).
"The presentation of the object is refined” so as to “multiply
schematic aspects” (AR 171f). “Old connotations of form, order, balance,
harmony, integration" are “invalidated” (AR 12). When the reader
"links” a "primary negation” to "his own disposition,”
“secondary negations” become “preponderant" and allow .a
defamiliarized world” to be "incorporated into the reader's store of
experience” (AR 219, 22Iff).
Psychoanalysis offers another framework for Iser's project. He remarks
that “a large area in the subject” “is closed to the conscious mind"
and “manifests itself in a variety of symbols” (AR 158). “Reading plays a
not unimportant part in the process of “becoming conscious" (AR 159).29
[29. Freud's motto “Where id was, ego shall he” (or rather, an odd
translation of it) is therefore approved as a description of "becoming
conscious" (cf. Ricoeur 1973: 142; and compare Fiedler's use, p. 86).
Poulet's “materialization of consciousness,” on the other hand, is
essentially rejected (AR 154f); Holland is more favorable to the idea, though he
imposes a bodily metaphor: “some form of mother and fetus perhaps” (5RR
51).] Freud's notion that “there are no negations in the
unconscious" indicates that “their intellectual function can only come
about through a conscious act" (AR 224). lser envisions a number of
operations whereby things emerge from the “unconscious": “our own
deciphering capacity"; the “expectations that underlie all
perception"; the “process of consistency-building'; the “system” of
“norms” in "society'; and so on (IP, 294, xiv; AR 212).30
[30. The processes Iser calls “automatic” may belong to the
“unconscious” as well: “observation” “involving”
“preconceptions”; “one meaning” "hearing" “the seeds of
several others'; “a speech act” “carrying implications”; ”thought
systems” being “recoded into a set of signals”; a blank
"'increasing” “disorderliness"; thematized “norms” being
“open" to a “critical view'; and so on (IR 209; AR 210, 60, 74, 209,
202). But these processes hardly resemble the drives and fantasies Freudians
assign to the unconscious (cf. Ch. 10)]
Iser also concurs with the psychoanalytic implication whereby
“reading” shows that “the certainty of the subject can no longer be based
exclusively on its own consciousness" (AR 159). His phenomenological
orientation fits “the psychoanalytic theory of art” about the
“contrapuntally structured personality" “resulting from the split
between the subject and himself'; and about the “hidden" “layer of the
personality brought to light" via “the text" (AR 156). In this view,
“the self is essentially incapable of completion"; “cannot comprehend
itself as the synthesis of its manifestations"; “cannot ensure its own
identity through memory”; and "needs a specific reality to take on a
concrete form of its own” (IR 145f, 122).
Yet this very "inadequacy” promotes “richness" (IR 145; cf.
IR 149). "Invention enables the self to confront itself with its own
image” (IR 169). “The self grasps historical reality through the perspective
it brings to bear," “relates” to “itself” by "mobilizing its
standpoints,” and “reflects on its own subjective judgments” (IR 134). In
"heightened consciousness," “the self can only experience its own
reality through an unending sequence of unintegrated and unintegratable
images"; it can thereby “acknowledge its own unfathomableness" (IR
175; 171). Once more, multiplicity and instability are seen as potential
advantages leading toward new experiences -- an un-Freudian conception closer to
third-force psychology (cf. Ch. 12).
Iser is evidently more wary about psychoanalysis than critics like Frye,
Fiedler, Holland, and Bleich. He grants that “a psychoanalytically based
theory seems eminently plausible, because the reader it refers to appears to
have a real existence of his own" (AR 28).31 [31. In his
vehement attack on Holland, Iser repudiates psychoanalytic ideas I find similar
to his own. He denies that “reading is” “a therapy to restore to
communication the symbols that have separated themselves from the conscious
mind” (AR 158f). Or, he derides as “far-fetched” the “idea of literary
texts changing the psyche of readers" as the “true meaning is
uncovered” (AR 42), yet asserts that “the whole purpose of the text is to
exert a modifying influence on” the reader's “disposition” (AR 42, 153).
Holland actually says just the opposite, namely that the psyche of the reader
does not change, but duplicates itself and its style in whatever is read (cf.
pp. 162ff). But he complains that in the work of Lesser (1957) or Holland
(1968), Freud's “original hermeneutic perspective” is “buried,” and
"the heuristics" "congeal into a system,” creating “an
“imperialistic philosophy"“ with "a jumbled, bloated
terminology" (AR 39). “Insights" are "obscured” and
“distorted” by “categorizing in orthodox psychoanalytic terms” and by
making "reified use” of the latter (AR 39, 41).
Besides, Iser feels reminded of “eighteenth-century classical
aesthetics” (recurring in the "emotive theory of I.A. Richards," AR
44), when Lesser (1957) suggests that "the solution” to "conflict”
is “manifested in the act of presentation'; or when Holland (1968) claims that
“literature should provide pleasure” by means of “a rhythmic alternation
of disturbance and solution" (AR 43f, 46; cf. AR 223). Adorno's (1970: 25)
reproach is quoted: the "psychologism of aesthetic interpretation"
entails an "aesthetic hedonism which banishes all negativity from
art"“ (AR 47). Or, if literature “merely" “demonstrates the
functioning of our psychological dispositions,” as Holland avers, it “must
lose its aesthetic quality," and its “study” becomes “supeffluous”
(AR 40).
Iser is also sceptical about “the instruments of linguistics, "
including “generative-transformational grammar” (AR 31f, 34). Linguistic
models insist on “the surface structure of the literary text," and the
furthest they get from it is a “deep structure” couched in much the same
categories and badly suited to “clarifying the processing of literary
texts" (AR 32).32 [32. Speech-act theory might be more
helpful in exploring the “pragmatic function” of “fictional language” to
“depragmatize the conventions it has selected” (AR 61). But the work of
Austin and Searle would have to be revised, since they “excluded literary
language from their analysis.”] Such
models resist the idea that “the extent and nature of the context"
“established by the retentive mind of the reader” "are beyond the
control of the linguistic sign” (AR 116). The “system of equivalence”
postulated in those models (by Jakobson for instance) is not
“indeterminate" or "unformulated" (AR 85), but situated in the
material of language. Even the “Russian Formalists" notion of
“protracted perception” of “art," though stated as a “process,”
implies a stable text to perceive, and hence “the determinate comprehension of
an object” (AR 187). This process could occur only” “once,” whereas the
"impeded ideation" and "image-building” foreseen by Iser
"make continual use of our disposition" and “lead to the repeatable
diversification of innovative gestalts of meaning” (AR 187f).
Iser is more favourably inclined toward "General Systems Theory,”
wherein "each system has a definite structure of regulators which marshal
contingent reality into a definitive order" (AR 71). "Each system must
effect a meaningful reduction of complexity by accentuating some possibilities
and neutralizing,” “negating,” or “deactivating” others. “The
reader's communication with the text” can be described as “cybernetic,”
"involving a feedback of effects and information throughout a sequence of
changing situational frames” (AR 67). “The relation between text and
reader" might be a “self-regulating system,” “the text” being “an
array of sign impulses” whose reception is subject to “constant
“feedback” of information already received.” A similar account is
propounded for “the transformations brought about by the theme-and-horizon
interaction” (AR 200f).. “Blanks" are also said to "function as a
self-regulating structure” "operating according to the principle of
homeostasis" (AR 194).
However, this framework, which Holland too now favours (pp. 179f), is yet
to be worked out in detail. My own view outlined in Chs. I and 2 is also
compatible, though I suggest that complexity is ideally integrated rather than
reduced, especially in regard to art works. Iser seems to concur when he warns
that "reduction" “should not be equated with simplification"
and “should not eliminate possibilities” (AR 71).
To make an overall estimate of Iser's work, we must appreciate his drive to venture into difficult or uncharted areas. When I once edited and published a summary of Iser's Act in a special issue of Discourse Processes (314, 1978), he was impressed by the number of offprint requests he got from psychologists and psychiatrists. Further empirical research is obviously needed before his work can be more than a possible map of new territory. But when the neglected terrains of language and cognition are finally fully opened to free exploration, the farsightedness of Iser's theorizing will no doubt be manifest.
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