Synopses & Reviews
Review
"This important collection of essays by one of the most original and influential theorists of reader-response criticism includes writings spanning nearly two decades. It thus shows the development of Iser's thought, from his early work in reader-response analysis to his current forays into what he calls 'literary anthropology,' that is, the study of what literary texts reveal about human nature. Along the way there are fine discussions of individual works. While this is by no means an easy book to peruse, any serious student of literary theory will want to give it careful study." Reviewed by Daniel Weiss, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)
Synopsis
Why do we need literature, and what does this need tell us about human nature? Wolfgang Iser shows how these questions grew out of his pioneering work in reader-response criticism and how the answers to them may lie in the new field of literary anthropology. Iser's recent work spans a wide range of viewpoints and subject matter, from sixteenth- to twentieth-century literature, from Spenser and Shakespeare to Joyce and Beckett. In thirteen chapters that chart his intellectual development over the past decade, Iser sets forth what reader-response theory has accomplished--and where it has fallen short. Reevaluating such time-honored concepts as representation, he sketches out a new play theory of the text that sees literature as an ongoing enactment of human possibilities.