Stepping Forward: Essays, Lectures and Interviews
New, unpublished pieces by Wolfgang Iser on reader theory; the
novel Tom Jones; fictionalizing; and cultural studies, among
others.
Wolfgang Iser is a leading exponent of 'reception theory'.
Wolfgang Iser's books include The Implied Reader (1974), The Act of
Reading (1978), Prospecting (1989) and The Fictive and the
Imaginary (1993). He has written books on Laurence Sterne (1988)
and Walter Pater (1987). He is Professor of English and Comparative
Literature at the University of Constance in Germany. ?
EXTRACT FROM CHAPTER ONE
If a literary text does something to its readers, it also
simultaneously tells us something about them. Thus literature turns
into a divining rod, locating our dispositions, inclinations, and
eventually our overall makeup. The question arises as to why we may
need this particular medium, in view of the fact that literature as
a medium is put on a par with other media, and the ever-increasing
role that these play in our civilization shows the degree to which
literature has lost its significance as the epitome of culture. The
more comprehensively a medium fulfils its sociocultural function,
the more it is taken for granted, as literature once used to be. It
did indeed fulfil several such functions, ranging from
entertainment through information and documentation to pastime, but
these have now been distributed among many independent institutions
that not only compete fiercely with literature but also deprive it
of its formerly all-encompassing function. Does literature still
have anything to offer that the competing media are unable to
provide?
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