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Woll~anplscr

l'l~c!Rvadil~g I'rc~ccss: A Pl~c~ion~enolodcal Approach

4.35

Tlie Reading Process: A Phenon~cnologicalApproacl~

Translaled wit11 David Ilcnry Wllso~i

he phenomenological theory of art lays full stress on the idea that, In considering a literary work, one must take lnto account not only the actual text but also, and In equal measure, tlie actlons involved In responding to that text. Thus Roman lngarden conironts the structure o i the literary text with the ways in which It can be kotikretisiert (realized).' The text as such olfers different "schematised vlews"I through which the subject matter of the work can come to ilght, but the actual brlnglng to Ilght Is an actlon o f Konkretisatioti. I f this Is so, then the Ilterary work has two poles, which we might call -the.artlstic and the esthetic: the artistic refers to the text create! by . the author, and the esthetic to the reallzatlon accomplished by iiie- reader. Fronl this polarity It follows tllat the Ilterary work carino;lbe co~npletely idelltical wlth tlle text, or with tlle realization of the text, but in fact must Ile halfway between the two. The work is more than the text, for the text only takes on life when It is realized, and furthermore the realization is by no means independent of the individual disposition of the reader-though this in turn is acted upon by the different patterns of the text. The convergence of text and reader brings the literary work lnto existence, and tllls converTIIE

Implied Reader, trans. wlth David Henry Wilson. E ~ i f l l l s tronalatlon l~ copyri~llt @ 1974 Johns tlopklns Unl\,erslty Press. Reprinted by per~nlsslon of Johns Ilopklns

R e A D l N o PROCF~S:A PIIP.NOMINOI.OGICAI,APPROACII,

by Wolf~an~ lser from T h e

gence can never be precisely plnpolnted, but must always remaln vlrtual, as It Is not to Ile Identified either wlth tlie reallty of the text or wi~h the Irtdividual disposition of the reader. I t Is the virn~ality of the work that gives rise to its dynamic nature, ant1 his in turn IS the preconditlo~l for the erects that the work calls forth. As the reader uses the various perspectives orrered Illnl by the text in order to relate the patterns and the "schematlsetl vlews" to one another, lie sets the work In motlon, ant1 1 1 1 1 svery process results ultimately In the awakenln~of responses wlthin himself. Thus, reacling causes the literary work to unfold Its Inherently dynamic character. That thls is no new dlscovery Is apparent from references made even i n the early days of the novel. Laurence Sterne remarks In Tri.~tram Sharldy: ". . no author, wllo understands tlie just boundarles of decorum and goocl-breetllng, would presume to thln:r all: Tlle truest respect which you can pay to the reader's understantllng, is to llalve tlils matter amlcahly, and leave hlm sometliing to Imaglne, In his turn, as we1l as yourself. For my own part, I am eternally paying hlm co~npllments of this kind, and do all that lies In my power to keep his imaglnatlon as busy as my own."' Sterne's conception of a literary text Is lh3t it is sometlllng like an arena In wi~ich reader and author participate i n a game of tile Imagination. I f tile reader were glven the whole story, anti there were nothing left for him to do, then his Imaglnatlon would never enter tlie field, the result woul(1 be the I boredom which Inevitably arlses when everything is laid out cut and tlried hefore us. A literary text must tllerefore be conceived In such a way that it will engage the reader's irnaglnation in the task of worklng j things out for hlmself, for readlng is only a pleasure when it is activecreative. I n tllis process of creativlty, the text may either not go far -and -. enou@h,or may go too far, SO we may say that boredom and overstrail1 form the boundaries beyond wlrlcll the reader will leave the field of play. ?'he extent to which the 'unwritten' part of a text stimulates the reader's creatlve ~~articipatlon is brought out by an observatlo~i or Virginia Woolf's In her study of jarte Arcstei~:

1. Cf. Roman Inbarden, b m Erkerl~~etr des lllerarlschet~Krttrstrr~erhr (TOhlngcn, 19681, pp. 49 IT. 2. For a detnlled dIscu.uinn of this term see Roman lqarden, Dm ll~erarlsche Kuns1u1erk (Tubingen, 1960), pp. 270 fi.

Jane Austen Is rhus a mlstrrss of much deeper emotion than appears upon Ihe surfnce. She stiniula~es us to supply what Is not she ofTers is, apparently, a trifle, yet Is composed of there. Wlli~t so~netillng that expands In the reader's mind and endows wlth

3. Lir~rencc Sterne, nisrram Shatfe)~ (lantlon, 1956), 11, 11:79.

h)
:

Wolfgang lscr be most enduring form of life scenes wllicli are outwardly trlvial. Jways the stress is laid upon charac!er. . . I'he turns and twists ~fthe dialogue keep us o n the tenterhooks of suspense. Our ttentloa is half upon the present momell[, half upon the luture. . Iiere, indeed, In 1111s unlinlslled and I n tlie main Inferior story, are all the elements of Jane Austen's greatness.'

lhc Readlng Proccss: A Phcnomcnologlcal Approacl~

437

Ingarden has called itttetttiotrale Satzkorrelate (Intentlonal sentence correlatlves): Sentences llnk up i n diiTerent ways to form more complex units of m e a n l n ~ that reveal a very varied stnlcture ~ i v i n g rise to such entities as a short story, a novel, a dialogue, a tlrama, a scientific theory. .. I n the final analysis, there arlses n partictrlar world, with component parts de~ermlned In thls way or that, ancl wlth all the variations that may occur withln these parts-all this as a purely Intentlonal correlative or a complex of sentelices. If tllls complex finally forms a Ilterary work, I call the witole sum o i sequent lntentlonal sentence correlatlves tlie 'worltl presented' I n the work?

..

?'he unwrltten aspects o f apparently trlvlal scenes and the unspoken dialogue withln the "turns and twlas" not only draw the reader into the action but also lead h i m t o shade i n the many outllnes suggested b y the given situations, so that these take o n a reality o f their own. But as the reader's imagination animates these 'outlines,' they i n turn w i l l influence the erect o f the wrltten part o f the text. Thus begins a whole dynamlc process: the written text imposes certain i l m i ~ s o n its unwrltten impllcatlons In order to prevent these from becoming too blurred and hazy, but at the same time these implications, worked out b y the reader's imagination, set the given situation against a background which entlows i t w i t h far greater signilicance than it might have seemed t o possess o n its own. I n this way, trivlal scenes suddeniy take o n the shape o f an "entiurlrig form o f lire." What constitutes thls form Is never named, let alone explainetl in tile text, although I n fact I t Is the e n d product o f the interactlon between text and reader.

'I'lie questlon now arlses as t o how far such a process can b e adequately described. For thls purpose a phenomenological analysls recon~mendsItself, especlally since the somewhat sparse observa. lions hltherto made of tlie psychology of readlng tend mainly to be psychoanalytical, and so are restricted t o the illustration o f predetermined ideas concerning the unconscious. We shall, however, take a closer look later at some worth-while psychological observations. As a starting point for a phenomenological analysis w e mlght examine the way I n which sequent sentences act upon one another. Thls is o f especlal Importance I n llterary texts i n vlew o f the fact that they tlo not corresj>o~ltl t o any objective reality ot~tsicle themselves. The world presented b y literary texts is constructed out o f what
Vlr8lnla Wocllf, The Cornrnotr Reader, Flrsl Serles in on don,

?'his world, however, does not pass before tlie reader's eyes like a film. T h e sentences are "component parts" Insofar as they make statements, claims, o r observatlons, o r convey Informatlon, and so establish various perspectives I n the text. Dut they remain only "component partsu-they are not the sum total of the text itself. For connections whlch Indlthe intentional correlatives disclose s u l ~ t l e vldually are less concrete than the statements, claims, and observations, even though these only take o n their real meaningfulness through the interaction o f tlieir correlatives. H o w Is one t o conceive tlie connection between the correlatlves? I t marks those polnts at which the reader is able to 'climb aboard' the text. l i e has t o accept certain given perspectives, but I n dolng so he inevitably causes them to interact. When Ingarden speaks o f Intentlonal sentence correlatlves In Iltemture, the statements made o r Informatlon conveyed In the sentence are already In a certain sense qualified: tlie sentence does not conslst solely of a statement-which, after all, would be absurd, as one can only make statements about things that exlst-but alms at something beyond what it actually says. Thls Is true o f all sentences In literary works, and i t is through the Interactlon o f these sentences that their common aim is fulfilled. This is what glves them thelr own special quallty In literary texts. I n their capacity as statements, observations, purveyors of Informatlon, etc., they are always indlcatlons ofsomethlng that Is to come, the structure j o f whlcli is foreshadowed b y thelr specific content. They set i n motion a process out o f which emerges the actual content o f the text Itself. In describing man's inner consciousness o f
5. Ingarden, lbrn Krkentwn des Ilremrfschetr Kutrslwerks, p. 29.

t957), p. 174.

Woifgan~lscr

T h c Rrndltt~ Proccss: A Pltet~on~cnolo~lcnl Approach

4.39

ne, Husserl once remarked: "Every origln:~llyconstruclive process Inspired by pre-intentions, which constrilct and collect the seed of hat Is to come, as such, and bring it to frultion.""or tills brlrlgillg to ,,~ l t i o n the , llterary text lieeds tlie reader's Itn:tgination, which gives sliape to the intenctlon of correlatives foreshatlowed in structure by the sequence of the sentences. Musserl's observation draws our attention to a point that plays a not insignificant part 111the process of readlng. The individual sentences not only work togetlier to shntle In what Is to come; they also form an expectatlon in this regard. 1 Iusserl calls this expectation "preintentions." As this structure Is characteristic of all sentence correlatlves, the Interaction of these correlatlves will not be a fulfilllnent of the expectation so much as a continual modlficatlon of it. For thls reason, expectations are scarcely ever fulfillecl in truly literary texts. ~f they were, then such texts would be confineti to tile indlvldualization of a glven expectation, and one woulrl Inevltahly ask what such an intention was supposed to acliieve. Stn~igely enough, we feel that any confirmatlve effect-such as we im(>licitly demand of expository texts, as we refer to the objects they are nieant to present-is a defect i n a literary text. For the more a text Individualizes or confirms an expectatlon It has initially aroused, the more aware we become of its didactic purpose, so that at best we can only accept or reject the tllesis forced upon us. More often than not, the very clarity of such texts will make us want to free ourselves from , tllelr clutches. But generally the sentence correlatives of literary texts do not develop i n this rigid way, for the expectations they evoke tend to encroach on one another In such a manner that they are g2ntlnual:-l y m0dlfied.a~one-reads. One mlght simpllfy by saying that each Intentional sentence correlative opens up a particular horizon, wl\ich is modified, i f not completely changed, by succeeding sentences. While tliese expectations arouse Interest in what is to come, the subsequent modification of them will also have a retrospective effect on what has already been read. This may now take on a different significance from that which it had at the moment of reading. Whatever we have read sltiks into our memory and Is foreshort: ened. I t may later be evoked again ant1 set agalnst a different background wlth the result that the reader is enabled to develop hltherto unforeseeable connections. The memory evoked, however,
6. Edmund tluaserl, Zrtr Ph~Yt~onrer:ol~@ des Itmurut: %eltbewrrsrtseltr$ Gesammelle

can never reassume its original sliape, for thls woultl mean that memory and perception were identical, which is rn:lnifestly not so. Tile new backgrounrl brings to I l ~ l i r new aspects of what we hntl comniittetl to niemory: co~iversely these, in turn, slietl their liglit on :~titlcii)atlo~is. the new hackgrountl, tllus arousing niore co~nl~lex Thus, the reader, in establisliing these Interrelations Iwtween past, present and future, actually causes tlie text to reveal its i~otential , rnulti~>licity ofconnections. These connections are the l~rocluc~ o l t~rd reader's mind working on the raw material of the text, tlloi~gli the are not the text Itself-for tliis conslsts just of sentences, statements, infonnatlon, etc. 'Tliis is why the reader often feels involvetl in events wliicli, at the tlme of readlng, seem real to Iiim, even tlrough 111fact they are very T a r from Ills own reality. Tlie fact tliat conipletely differelit reatlers can I)e differently affected hy tlie 'reality' of a particular text is ample evidence of tlie degree to which literary texts transform reading into a creative process that is T a r al~ove mere perception of what is written. The literary text activates our own faculties, enablilig us to recreate tile world it presents. The product of thls creative activity is what we mlglit call the virtual dir~iension of the text, whicll entlows it wltll its reality. Tllis vlrtual dimension Is not the text Itself, nor is it tlie imagination of the reader: It Is tlie coniing together of text and - . Imagination. - -_- . - As we have seen, tile activity of reading can be cl~aracterized as a sort of kaleidoscope of perspectives, prelntentions, recollections. Every sentence contalns a preview of the next atlrl for~ns a klntl of the 'preview' viewfinder for what is to come; and tliis in turn cha~~ges and so becomes a 'viewfintler' for what 1 1 3 s bcen reiltl. 'i'liis wliole process represents the fulfillment of the potential, unexl)ressed reality of the text, but it Is to be seen only as a framework T o r a great variety of means by whlch tlie vlrtilal ditl~ension niay I)e hroitglit Into being. The process of anticipation and retrospcctlon itself does not by any means develop in a srnootlt flow. ingarden iias already drawn attention to this fact and ascribes a quite remarkable slgnific;lnce to It:

.---_

Krrhr (The Ha~ue. 1966). 1052.

Once we are Immersed In the flow of .Tarrdorrketr (setllrnce. ~hough~), we are ready, after completing [he tlwlugiit of one sentence, to thlnk out the 'contlnr~atlon,'also in the form of a sentence-and tilat Is. in the form ola sentence tliat connects up with the sentence we have just thought tl~rough. In tills way lire process olreadlng goes elTortleisly lorward. But If by chance the foliowlng sentence has no tanglbie connection wilatever witll

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44n

Wolfgang lser i ~ sentence e we have just thought through, there then comes a )lockage in the stream of thougllt. Thls hlatus Is linked wlth a nore or less actlve surprlsc, or wit11 Indlgnatlo~l. 'I'i~isblockage nust l~ overcome If the reatling Is to flow once more.'

Thc Readlng ~rocess:A Phenomenological Approach

441

The hiatus that blocks the flow o f sentences is, In Ingarden's eyes, the product o f cllance, and is to Ile regarded as a flaw; tliis is typical of his aclllerence to the classical Idea o f art. If one regards tlle sentence sequence as a continual flow, this implies tllat the anticipation aroused by one sentence w i l l generally be realized by tile next, and the frustration o f one's expectations w i l l arouse feelings o f exasperaand turns, and tion. And yet literary texts are full of unexpected twis~s frustration of expectations. Even In tlle sinlplest story there is I ~ o u n d to be some klnd o f blockage, if orlly 1)ec:ttlse no tale can ever IIe told In its entirety. Indeed, it Is only throt~gh Inevltal~le omissions that a story gains its dynamism. Thus whenever the flow Is interrupted and we are led off in unexpected directions, the opportunity is given to us to I ~ r l n g into play our own faculty for establishing con~lections-for filling i n the gaps left by the text itself? These gaps have a different effect on'the process of antlclpntlon and retrospection, and thus o n the 'gestalt' o f the virtual dlmension, reason, one text Is for they may be filled in dlKerent ways. For t l ~ i s potentially capable of several different reallzatlons, and n o reatling can ever exhaust the full potential, for each lntllvldual reader w i l l fill i n the gaps In his own way, tlierelly excluding the various other possibilities; as he reads, he will make llis ow11 decisio~i as to how t l ~ e gap is to be filled. In this very act the tlynamics o f reading are revealed. By making his decision Ile implicitly acknowledges the inexliaustibiilty of the text; at the same tinie i t is this very inexhausti. billty that forces h i m to make his decision. With 'traditional' texts tills process was more or less unconscious, but motler~i texts frequently exploit i t quite deliberately. They are oftell so fragmentary that one's atlentlon is almost exclusively occul~ied with the search for connections between the fragments; the object o f this is not l o conll~licate tlie 'spectrum' o f connections, so much as to make us aware of the links. nature of our own capacity for p r o v i d i ~ ~ g I n sucll cases, tlie text
7. In~ardcn, Vonr Erhetrtrotr n o s llterorlschetr Klrrrstrrlu,Ps, 1). 32.

8. For a more de~alied dlsc\~sslon of the f\~nctlon of "finl~s"In literary lexls sec

Iser, Wlf~an ~ "lntleterrnlnacy anti tile Render's Resimnse In Prose Plctlon," Aspects nf Nanatlrle (Engllab Institute Essays), cd. J. l l l l l l s Mlllcr (New York.
1971). pp. 1-45.

refers hack directly to our own preconceptlons-which are revealed by the act o f Interpretation that Is a basic element o f the reading process. With all literary texts, then, ufe may say that the reading process 1 s selective, and the potential text is Infinitely rlciler tllan.any-- \, of its i n d l v i d ~ ~ ~ -___ ! z ~__ i o n ._ s~ borne-out'by-illeLfact-that TI~~~is a second~reading of a piece o f 1 1 t e r a t u r e ~ o f t e n ~ ~ i 6 d u c ~S~a-dff~~~ *. . - ---impression from the first. The reasons for thls may lie-in rhe reader's ownchange~ofcircumstances,still, the text must be such as to allow this variation. O n a second readlng familiar occurrences now tend to appear In a new l i g i ~ t and seem to be at times corrected, 31 times enriched. I n every text there is a potential time sequence which the reader nlust Inevitably realize, as i t is impossible to nbsorb even a short text In a single moment. Tllus the reading process always involves viewing the text through a perspective that Is continually o n the move, linking up the different phases, and so constructing what we have called the virtual dimension. Thls dimension, of course, varies all the time we are readlng. However, when we have finished the text, and read it again, clearly our extra knowledge will result in a different time sequence; we shall tend to establish connections by referrlng to our [ awareness of what Is to come, and so certain aspects of the text will assume a significance we d i d not attach to them on a first reading, wlille others w i l l recede Into tlie background. I t lsa common enough' experience for a person to say that o n a second reading he noticed things he had missed when he read tile book for tile first time, hut this is scarcelysurprising In view o f tlle fact that tlle second time he is looking at the text from a different perspective. The time sequence that he realized on his first reading cannot possibly be rei~eatetl on a second reading, and this unrepeatability is bound to result i n modifications o f his reading experience. This is not to say that the second reading is 'truer' than the first-they are, quite simply, different: the reader establislles the virtu;ll dimension of the text by realizing a new time sequence. Thus even on repeated viewings a text allows and, indeed, induces innovative reading. In whatever way, and underwllatever circumstances the reader may link tlie different phases o f the text together, It will always be the process of anticipation and retrospection that leads to the formation o f tlie virtual dlmenslon, which In turn transforms the text into an experience for the reader. The way In whlch thls experience comes about through a process of continual modlficatlon Is closely akin to the way In which we gather experience in Ilfe. And tllus the 'reality' of

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442

Wolfgang lser

Tile Reading Procrss: A Pl~enn~llcnnlngical Apprnach

443

he reading experience can Illuminate baslc patterns of real experl. mce: W e have the experlence ofa world, not uliderstoodas a system of relations wliich wholly determine each event, but ns an open totailty the synthesis of which is inexl~austll,le. . From the moment that experience-that is, tlie opening on to our defacro world-Is recognlzed a s the beginning of knowledge, there Is no longer any way of distlngulshin~ a level of aprlorltruths and one or factual ones, what the world must necessarily be and what i t actually is?

..

are variable. The author of the text may, of course, exert plenty of Influence on tlie reatler's Imaglnatlon-lie has the whole panoply of narrative teclinlques at his tlispnsal-hut no author worth his salt will ever attempt to set the ulhole picture before his reatler's eyes. I f he does, he wlll very quickly lose Ills reader, for It Is only by actlvatinp; the reatler's Imaglr~ation that lhe author can hope to involve him and so reallze tile lntentlons of his text. Gllhert Ryle, i n hls analysls of Imagination, asks: "How can a person fancy that he sees somethlng, without reallzing that he Is not s follows: seeing It?" He answers a Seeing tIelveilyn [the name of a mountaln] In one's mlnd's eye does not entail, what seeing Helvellyn and seeing snapshots of Helvellyn entail, tile liavlng of visual sensations. I t does involve the tho~lght of havlng a view of Ilelvellyn and I t is therefore a more sophlsticaletl operation than that of havlng a view of Ilelveiiyn. It is one utill.tatlonamong others ofthe knowledge of how llelvellyn sliouitl look, or, In one sense of the verb, It is thinking how It should look.Tire expecta~lons whlch are fulfilled in tlie recognition at sight of Ilelvellyn are not indeed fulfilled In plcturlng It, but the picturing of i t Is something like a reiicarsal of gettlng them fulfilled. S o far from picturing lnvolvlng the havlng of faint sensations, or wraiths of sensatlons, It Involves missing lust what one woilld bc due to get, If one were seeing the I f one sees the mountain, tlicn of course one can no longer Imagine
It, and so the act of picturing the mountain presupposes Its al~sence.

The manner In whlch the reader experiences the text will reflect hls own dispositlon, and in this respect the literary text acts as a kind of mlrror; but at the same tlme, the reallty whlch thls process helps to create Is one that wlll be dtferenf from Ills own (slnce, normally, we tend to be bored by texts that present us with things we already know perfectly well ourselves). Thus we liave the apparently paradoxical situation In which the reader Is forced to reveal aspects of himself in order to experlence a reallty wlilch Is dlrerent from hls own. The Impact thls reallty makes on him will depend largely on the extent to which he himself actively provides the unwritten part of the text, and yet in supplying all the missing links, he must think In terms of experlences different from his own; Indeed, It Is only by leavlng behind the famlliar world of his own experience that the reader can truly participate i n tile adventure the literary text orers him.

Similarly, wlth a literary text we can only picture things wliich are not
W e have seen that, durlng the process of reatling, there Is an actlve Interweaving of anticipation and retrospection, wlllch on a second readlng may turn Into a kind o f advance retrospection. The Impres. slons that arlse as a result of thls process wlll vary from Indlvltlual to Indlvidual, but only wlthln the llmits Imposed by the wrltten as opposed to the unwritten text. I n the same way, two people gazing at the nlght sky may both be looking at the same collection of stars, but one will see the Image of a plougll, and the other wlll make out a dipper. The 'stars' in a literary text are fixed; the llnes that loit1 them 9. hi. btcrleau.Ponly, Phetrometrolog,~ oJPerceptlott, 1962), pp. 219,221.
trans.

there; the written part of the text gives us the knowleclge, hut i t Is the unwritten part tllat gives us the opportunity to picture tlllngs; Indeed without the elements of indeterminacy, the gaps In the text, we should not be able to use our imaglnation.ll The truth of this ohservatlon Is I m n e out hy the experlence many people have on seeing, for Irlstance, the filni ola novel. While reading Toin Jottes, they may never have had a clear conception of what the hero actually looks Iike, hut on seeing the film, some may say, "That's not how I imagined him." ?'he point here is tliat the reader of Tom Jones is able to visualize tile hero vlrtually for himself, and so his
10. Gill)ert Ryle, The Cotrcepl oJlfhrd (l~arrnondsworth, 19Gfl), p. 255. 11. Cf. Iser. "Indeterminacy." pp. I 1 ff.;42 If.

Colln Smlth (New York,

2
I

\unlfgang iser

Thc Rcnding Process: A Phcnomcnologlcal Approach

445

on senses the vast number of possibilities; the moment islbliities are narrowed down to one complete and immuta. .e, the Imagination is put out of action, and we feel we have I been clieated. This may perliaps be an oversimplification of the process, but I t does Illustrate plainly the vital richness of potential that arises out of the fact that the hero in the novel milst be pictured and cannot be seen. With the novel tlie reader must use hls imagination to synthesize the in6rnlatlon given him, and so his perception is simult;~neously richer and more private; with the film Ile is confined merely to pllysical perception, and so whatever Ile remenll,ers of the world he had pictured Is brr~taily cancelled out.

The 'plcturing' that is done by our irnagln;~tion is only one of the activities through which we form the 'gestalt' of a literary text. We have alreatly discussed the process of anticipation and retrospection, ant1 to thls we must add tlle process of gr~up1118 together all tlle different aspects of a text to form the conslstency that the reader will always be In search of. Whlle expectations may be contlnually modified, and lma~escontlnually expanded, the reader will still strive, even if unconsciously, to fit everytlilng togetlier Ina conslstent pattern. "In the reading of Images, as I n the hearing of speech, i t is always hard to distlngulsh what Is given to us from what we 1 y supplement In the process of project1011 w l ~ l c l iIs triggered o l l 1 recognition . . i t is the guess of the beholder that teas the medley of forms and colours for coherent meaning, crystallizing it Into shape when a consistent interpretation has been found."12 Ry grouping together the written parts of the text, we enable them to Interact, we observe the direction In wliich they are leading us, and we project onto them the consistency which we, as readers, require. ?'his 'gestalt' must inevitably be colored by our own cllaracteristic selection process. For It Is not given by the text itsell; it arlses from the meeting between the written text and the individual mind of the reader with its own particular history of experience, Its own consciousness, its own outlook. Tlle 'gestalt' is not the true meaning of the text; at best it is a configurative meanina; . comprellension is

an individual act of seeing.things-together, and only that."') With a literary text such comprehension is inseparable from tile reader's expectations, and where we have expectations, there too we have one of tlie most potent weapons i n the writer's armory-illusion. Whenever "consistent reading suggests itself. . . iilusion takes over."" Illusion, says Northrop nye, Is "fixed or definal~le, and reality is best underslood as its negatlon."15 ?'he 'gestalt' of a text normally takes on (or, rather, is given) tllis fixed or definable outline, as this is essential to our own understantling, but on the other hand, if reading were to consist of notlllng but an uulnterrupted building up of Illusions, i t would be a suspect, i f not downright dangerous, process: instead of bringing us into contact with reality, I t wor~itl wean us away from realities. Of course, there is an element of 'escnplsm' In all literature, resulting from thls very creation of illusion, but there are some texts which offer nothing but a harmonious world, purified of al l contradiction and deliberately excluding anything that might dlsturb the illusion once estal>lished, and these are the texts that we generally clo not like to classify as literary. Women's magazines and' I -9 . the brasher forms of the detective story might be clted as examples.__ However, even If an overdose d.llluslon Inay lead to triviality,tld; does not niean that tlie process or Illusion-l~ulldlng sliould Ideally be dispensed wltli altogether. On tlie contrary, even In texts that appear to reslst the formation of Illusion, thus drawlng our attention to the cause of this resistance, we still need the ahlding illusion that the resisiance itself Is the consistent pattern underlying the text. This is especially true of modern texts, In which I t Is the very precision of the written details which increases the proportion of indeterminacy; one detall appears to contradict another, ant1 so slmultaneot~sly stimulates and frustrates our desire to 'picture,' tlius continually causing our imposetl 'gestalt' of the text to clisintegrate. Without the formation of illusions, the unfamiliar world of the text woultl remain unfamiliar; tllrough the illusions, the experlence o k r e t i by the text I)ecomes accessll~le to us, for it is only the illusion, on its different levels of consistency, that makes the experience 'readable.' I f we cannot find (or impose) thls consistency, sooner or later we will put the text

'

". .

. II.Gornhrlch, Arl a t ~ d Illvslotr (Inndon, 1962). p. 204.

1.3. I.ouls 0. Mlnk, "l~lstor)'nntl 1:lcllon na Modes of Cornprel~cnslo~~." Nctcv l.(/croty /!l.s/ory 1 ( 1970):553. 14. Gomhrlch, Ar/ 4ttd Illrrsloti, p. 278. 15. Norllirop Frye. Atialomj o f C r(lkls~ n (New Ynrk, 1967). pp. 169 f.

i46

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447

iown. The process Is virtually hermeneutic.The text provokes certain !xpectations which In turn we project onto the text In such a way that ve reduce the polysemantic possibilities to a single lnterpretation in ,teeplng with the expectations aroused, thus extracting an Individual, configurative meaning. The polysemantic nature of the text and the illusion-maklng of the reader are opposed factors. I f tlie illusion were complete, the polysemantlc nature would vanish; if the polysemantic nature were ali.powerful, tlie illusion would be totally destroyed. Both extremes are conceivable, but in the individual llterary text we always find some form of balance between the two conflicting tendencies. The formatlon of Illusions, therefore, can never he total, but it is this very incompleteness that in fact gives It its productive value. With regard to the experlence of reading, Walter Pater once observed: "For to the grave reader words too are grave; and the ornamental word, the figure, the accessory form or colour or refer. ence, is rarely content to die to thought precisely at the right moment, but will inevitably linger awhile, stirrlng a long 'brainwave' behind i t of perhaps quite alien assoc~ations."'~ Even while the reader is seeking a consistent pattern In.the text, he Is also uncovering other impulses which cannot be immediately integrated or wlll even resist final integration. Thus the semantic possibilities ,of tile text will always remain far richer than any configurative meaning formed while reading. But thls impression is, of course, only to be gained through reading the text. Thus the configurative meaning can be nothing but a parspro toto fulfillment of tlie text, and yet tiiis fuifiliment gives rise to the very richness which i t seeks to restrict, and indeed In some modern texts, our awareness of this rlchness takes precedence over any configurative meaning. This fact has several consequences which, for the purpose of analysls, may be dealt with separately, though in the reading process they will all be working together. As we have seen, a consistent, configurative meanlng Is essential lor the apprehension of an unfamiliar experlence, which through the process of illusion-buildlng we can Incorporate i n our own imaginathe world. At the same time, this consistency conflicts wlth the many other possibilities of fulfillment i t seeks to exclude, with the result that the configurative meaning is
16. Walter Parer. Appruclotlotu (London, 1920), p. 18.

always accompanied by "alien associations" that do not [it in wlth the illusions formed. The first consequence, then, i s the fact that in formlng our Illusions, we also produce at the same time a latent disturbance of these illusio~is. Strangely enough, this also applies to texts In which our expectations are actually fulfilled-though one would have thought that the fulfillment of expectations would help to complete the illusion. "lliusioti wears off once the expectation Is stepped up; we take i t for granted and want more."" The experiments In gestalt psychology referred to by Gombrlch In A r t atid I f ~ u l o n make one thing clear: ". . . thoiigh we may be intellectually aware of the fact that any given experience must he an illusion, we cannot, strictly speaking, watch ourselves having an Now, If Illusion were not a transitory state, this would ili~sion."'~ mean that we could be, as i t were, permanently caught up In It. And if reading were exclusively a matter of producing iliuslon-necessary though this Is for the understandingof an unfamillar experience-we should run the risk of falling victlm to a gross deception. But i t I s precisely during our readlng that the transitory nature of the iliusion i s revealed to the full. As the formatlon of illusions Is constantly accornpanled by "alien assoclatlons" whlch cannot be made conslste~lt with the illusions, [lie reader constantly has to lift tlie restrictions he places on the 'meaning' of the text. Since I t is ile who builds the illusions; lie oscillates between involvement In and observation of those illusions; he opens himself to the unfamiliar world without being imprlsoned in i t . Through thls process the reader moves into tlie presence of the fictional world and so experiences the realities of the text as they happen. I n the oscillation between consistency and "a1 ien associations," between involvement in and observation of the illusion, the reader Is bound, to conduct his own balancing operatlon, and I t i s thls that forms the esthetic experlence orered by the llterary text. Iiowever, if then no the reader were to achleve a balance, obviously he wol~ld longer be engaged in the process of establlshlng and dlsruptlng consistency. And since It Is this very process that gives rise to tlie balancingoperation, we may say that the Inherent nonachievement of o r the very dynarnlsm of the operatlon. In balance is a prerequisite T
17. Gombrich, Art arrd Illrts/ot~, p . 54. 18. Ibld., p. 5.

Tltc Rr;~cling Proc~ss:A Plirnnn~rntil~~~lral Approach

449

-. . 11 Is thls Interplay between"deduction" and "inclis~lon",that glves

llle balat~ccwe Inevltal,ly Ilave to d n r t ottt wit11 certain Is Intgr;ll to the estl~etlc :t;~tions, the shattering of wl~lcl~ ience. Furtliermore, to say merely thnt "our exl~cct:~rio~is are sntlstictl" I s lo bc ~ u l l t y of another serlous amblgt~lty, At first sight sucl~ a statement seems to deny the obvlous fact that m~tcliof our enloyment Is derlvetl from surprlses, from betrayals of our expectatlons. The solution to thls paradox Is to find some grourld for a tlistinctlon between "surprlse" and "frustration." Roughly, the dlstinctlon can be made,In terms or the elTects which lhe two kinds of experiences have upon us. Frustatlon blocks or checks o r our actlvlty, if we are activity. It necessitates new orlentatlon T to escape the c1t1de sac. Consequently, we abandon the frt~stratIng oblect and return to blind llnpulse acttvlty. On the other Iiand, surprise merely causes a temporary cessntlon of tlie a recourse to intensc' explomtory pliase of the experience, a~itl snd scrutlny. In the latter liIi:~se tile surl)rlslng co~itenil)l:~tion clenients are seen In their colinectlon with what has gone before, wltli the wliole drift o f tile experle~ice, and tlie cnloyis then extremely Intense. I:lnnlly, It appears melit ol'tliesev~lues that there must always be some degree of novelty or surprlse In all these values Il there Is to be a progressive specllication of the and any aesrlhetlc experlence lends dlrectlon of the total act to exl~lblta continuous interplay between "deductlve" and "lnductlve" ~peratlons.'~

...

rise to tile configuratlve meaning of the text, and not the Indlvldual expectations, surprlses, or frustrations arlslng from the dliTerent perspectives. Since thls Interplay obviously does not take place In the text Ilself, but can only come Into belng through the process of reading,we may conclude that thls process formulates sometlling that Is unformulated In the text and yet represents Its 'Intention.' Thus, by reading we uncover the unformulated part of the text, and tl~ls very Indetermlnacy Is the force that drives us to work out a configurative meaning whlle at the same time givlng us the necessary degree of freedom to do so. kr, we work out a conststent pattern In the text, we wlll find our 'interpretatlon' threatened, as It were, by the presence of other
19. D. Rllchle, "The-Formal Structure of the Aesthetic Ob(ect," In The Problems o f Ausrberlcs, ed. Ellseo Vl vas and Murray Krleger (New York, 1965), pp. 230 T.

posslhllltles of 'lnterpretatlon,' and so there arlse new areas of lndetermlnacy (tl~ough we may only he dlmly aware of them, If at all, as we are contlnually making 'declslons' whlch will exclude them). In the course of a novel, for instance, we sometimes find that characters, events, and backgrounds seem to change thelr slgnifl. cance; what really Ilappens Is that the other 'possil>ilitles' begin to emerge more strongly, so thnt we become more tllrectly aware of them. Indeed, It Is thls very shlfting of perspecllves tllat makes us feel that a novel Is mucl~ more 'true-to-life.'Slnce It Is we ourselves who establisl~ the levels of interpretation and swllcl~ rrom one to another as we conduct our halaticing operation, we ourselves Impart to the text the dynamic llfeliketiess which, In turn, enables us to absorb an ilnf8mlliar experlence Into our personal world. As we read, we oscllli~te to a greater or lesser degree between the hulldlng and the breaking or illusions. In a process or trlal and error, we organlzc and reorganize the various data oNered 11sby the text. These are the glven factors, the fixed points on wliicl~ we base our 'interpretntion,' trying to fit them togetl~er In the wiry we lhlnk the author meant them to be fitted. "l:or to percelve, a beholtler must crvafo hls own experlence. Ant1 Ills creation must l~~clude relations comparable to those wlllch the orlglnal producer underwent. They are not the same In any llteral sense. But wlth the perceiver, as wltll the artlst, there must be an ordering or the elements of the wllole that Is In form, although not In detalls, the same as the process of organlzatlon the creator of the work consciously experienced. With. out an act of recreatlon the object Is not perceived 3s a work of art."20 The act of recreation Is not a smooth or continuous process, hut one wliicl~, in its essence, relies on m ~ g r t h flowto e render It eficaclous. W e look forward,we look back, we decide, we change our declslons, we form expectatlons, we are shocked by thelr nonfulfillment,we quesllon, we muse, we accept, we reject; thls Is the dynamlc process of recreatlon. Thls process Is steered by two nlaln structural components wlthln the text: first, a repertolre of famlllar llterary patterns and recurrent Ilterary themes, together with allusions to famlllar soclal and hlstorlcal contexts; second, technlques or strategies used to set the famlliar agalnst the unfamiliar. Elements of the repertolre are contlnually backgrounded or foregrounded with a resultant strategic overmagnlfication, trivlalizatlon,
20. John Dewey, Art m Experlet~ce (New York, 1958), p. 54.

150

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Approach

451

3r even annihilation of the allusion. This defamiliarizatlon_of wliat the reader thought he recognized is bound to create a tenslon that / will intensify Ills expectatlolls as well as hls distrust of tilose expectations. Similarly, we may be confronted by narratlve tech. niques that establish links between things we find dificult to connect, so that we are forced to reconsider data we at hrst lield to be perfectly straightforward. One need only nlentlon the very simple trick, so often employed by novelists, whereby the author himself takes part In the narrative, thus establlshlng perspectlves which would not have arisen out of the mere narration of the events descril~ed. Wayne Booth once called this the technique of tlie "unreliable narrator,"" to sliow the extent to whlch a literary device can counter expectations arising out of the literary text. The figure of tlie narrator may act in permanent oppositlon to the Impressions we niight otherwise form. The question then arises as to whether thls strategy, opposlng tlie formation of llluslons, may be Integrated Into a conslstent pattern, lylng, as It were, 3 level deeper than our orlglnal Irnpresslons. We may find tliat our narrator, by opposlng us, In fact turns us agalnst lilm and thereby strengthens the llluslon he appears to be out to tlestroy; alternatively, we may be so much In doubt that we begln to questlon all the processes that lead us to make interpretative declslons. Whatever the cause niay be, we will find ourselves subjected to thls same Interplay of Illusion-formlng and illusion.breaking that makes reading essentially a recreative process. We mlglit take, as a slmple Illustration of this complex process, the incident in Joyce's Ubses in whlcli Bloom's cigar alludes to Ulysses's spear. The context (Bloom's clgar) summons up a particular element of the repertolre (Ulysses's spear); the narratlve technlque relates them to one another as If they were identical. flow are we to 'organize' these divergent elements, which, through the very fact that they are put together, separate one element so ctearly from the other? What are the prospects here for a conslstent pattern?We might say tllat i t is iro~iic-at least that is how many renowned Joyce readers have understood it.'2 I n t l ~ l scase, Irony would be tile form of organization that Integrates the material. Rut If this Is so, what Is the object of the Irony?Ulysses's spear, or Bloom's clgar?The uncertainty
21. C f . Wayne C. Rooth, T l ~ c Rheforlc of WcfIo?~ (Clllcagn, 1963), pp. 21 1 8., 339 fl. 22. Rlchard Ellrnann. "lllysses. The D l v l ~ ~ Nohocly." e In 7 l r v l r r Origir~nI E sva~s 0 1 1 Grvor Etrgltsb Norw.k, ed. Clrorles Shnplro (Derrolr. 1960). p. 247. clasalfied thls -par~lcular atluslon as "mock~l~eroic."

surrounding this slmple question already puts a straln on the consistency we have established and, indeed, begins to puncture it, especially when other problems make themselves felt as regards the remarkable conjunction of spear and cigar. Various alternatives come to mind, but the variety alone Is sufficient to leave one with the impression that tile conslstent pattern has been sliattered, h c l even if, after all, one can still believe that irony holds the key to the mystery, this irony must be ofa very strange nature; for the formulated text does not merely mean the opposite of what llas been formulated. I t may even mean something that cannot be formulated at all. The moment we try to impose a consistent pattern on the text, dlscrepancles are bound to arlse. These are, a s It were, the reverse side of the lnterpretatlve coin, an involuntary product of the process that creates discrepancies by trying to avoid them. And it Is their very presence that draws us into the text, compelling us to conduct a creatlve examination not only of the text but also of ourselves. l'hls entanglement of the reader Is, of course, vital to any kind of text, but In the literary text we have the strange sltuatlon tliat the reader cannot know what hls partlclpatlon actually entails. We know that we share In certaln experlences, but we do not know wliat happens to us in the course of thls process. 'Thls Is why, when we 1 y a book, we feel the need to talk have been particularly Impressed 1 about It; we do not want to get away from it by talking about it-we slmply want to understand more clearly what i t is In which we have been entangled. We have undergone an experience, and now we want to know consciously tuhat we have experienced. Perhaps thls Is the prlme usefulness of Ilterary crltlcism-It helps to make conscious those aspects of the text which would otherwise remain concealed in the subconscious; It satisfies (or helps to satlsfy) our desire to talk about what we have read. The eflicacy of a llterary text Is brought about by the apparent evocation and subsequent negation of tlie famlliar, What at first seemed to be an affirmation of our assumptions leads to our own rejection of them, thus tendlng to prepare us for a re-orlentation. And It Is only when we have outstripped our preconceptions ancl left the shelter of the famlliar that we are i n a position to gather new experlences. As the llterary text Involves the reader In the formation of illuslon and the simultaneous formation of the means whereby the lliusion Is punctured, readingreflects the process by-which-we gain; experience. Once the reader is entangled, hls own preconceptionsr are c6ntiiiuiTTy%vertaken.sothat the text becomes his 'present' whlle

' ,

Thc Reading Prorcss: A Phc~~on~cnolo~lcal Approach

453

i!

ideas fade into the 'past;'as soon as this happens he is open mmedlate experlence ol the text, whlch was Impossible so hls preconceptions were Ills 'present.'

In our analysls of the reading process so far, we have observed three important aspects that form the basis of the reiationslilp between reader and text: the process of antlclpation ant1 retrospection, the consequent unfolding of the text as a living event, and tlie resultant impression of life-likeness. Any 'llvlng event' must, to a greater or lesser degree, renlaln open. In readlng, this obliges the reader to seek continually for consistency, because only then can he close up situations and comprehend the unfamlliar. But consistency-building is itselfa living process in whlch one Is constantly forced to make selective decisions-and these decisions in their turn give a reality to the posslbllities which they exclude, insofar as tiley may take effect as a latent disturbance of tile conslstency established. This Is what causes tlie reader to be entangled in the text-'gestalt' that he himself has produced. Through thls entanglement the reader Is bound to open hlmself up to the woiklngs of the text and so leave behlnd Ills own preconceptlons. Thls gives him the chance to have an experience In the way . (George Bernard Shaw once described it: "You have learnt sometliing. '' ) (That always feels at first as if you had lost s~niething!'~~ Reading reflects the structure of experience to the extent that we must suspend the ideas and attitudes that shape our own personality before we can experlence the unfamiliar world of the literary text. But during this process, something happens to us.

Thls 'something' needs to be looked at in detail, especially as the incorporation of tlie unfamiliar into our own range of experlence has been to a certain extent obscured by an idea very common in literary discussion: namely, that the process of a1)sorbing the unfamlllar Is labeled as the i d e n t i f c a t l o n of the reader wlth what i ~ reads. e Often the term 'identlficatlon' Is used as if it were an explanatloti, whereas In actual fact it is nothing more than a descriptiotl. What is tiormally
I. G.D. Shaw. Major Rarbarcr

meant by 'Identification' is the establishment of affinities between oneself and someone outslde oneself-a familiar ground on whlch we arc able to experlence the unfamiliar. The author's alm, though, Is to convey the experlence and, above all, an attitude townrtl that experlence. Consequently, 'identlficatlon' h not an end In Itself, but a strategem by means of which the autlior stimulates attitudes In the reader. This of course Is not to deny that there does arise a form of participation as one reads; one is certainly drawn into the text in such a way that one has the feeling that there Is no distance between oneself and the events described. This Involvement Is well summed up by tlie reactlon of a critlc to reading Charlotte Bronte's Jane E y e : I "We took upJane Ejs-eonewlnter's evening, somewhat plqued at the extravagant commendations we had heard, and sternly resolvetl to be as critical as Croker. But as we read on we forgot both commendations ant1 criticism, ldentlfied ourselves wit11 Jane In all her troubles, and finally married Mr. Rochester about four in the morning."" The questlon is how and why did tlie crltic identify himself with Jane? In order to understand thls 'experience,' It is well worth conslderIng Georges Poulet's observations on the reading process. He says that books only take on thelr full existence in the readere2'It Is true that t ~ ~ ~ ~ o n s l s t ^ d ~ ~ ~in u readlng ~ ~ ~ b " j - ~ ~ ~ the reader becomes tile subject that does the thlnklng. Thus there disappears the subject-objectdivlslon that otherwise Is a prerequisite for all knowledge and ail observation, and the removal of thls division puts reading in an apparently unique position as regards the possible absorption of new experiences. This may well be the reason why relations wlth the world of the literary text have so often been misinterpreted as Identification. From the Idea that In reading we must think the thoughts of someone else, Poulet draws the following conclusion: "Whatever 1 think is a part of my mental world, And yet here 1 am thlnklng a thought wllich manifestly belongs to another mental world, which is being thought in me just as though 1 dld not exist. Already the notloti is Inconceivable and seems even more so if 1 reflect that, since every thought must have a subject to cl~lnk it, 1111s t l ~ o r i g l which ~t is alien to me and yet in me, rnust also have in me a
I

21. Wllllam George Clark. Fraser's (I)cceml)er, 1849): 692, quored by Icirhlecn Tlllo~~on. No~wLro f rhe Eigbrertr.Forties ((Oxford, 1961), pp. 19 f. 25. 'CT. Geor~esPoulet, "Phenomenology or Readlog." Nrru Litemry Ifistory I

(London, 1964). p. 316.

(1969):54.

T h e Rcndill~Process: A Plrnonlennlo~kal Approach

fict whlch Is alien to me. .Whenever 1 read, 1 mentally , and yet the I whlch Ipronounce Is not myself."26 nounce an I

455

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~ ufor t Poulet this idea IS only part of the story. l'lie strange sublect that thlnks tlie strange thought in tlie reader Indicates tlie potentlnl presence of the author, whose ideas can be 'Internalized' by the reader: "Such is the characterlstlc condition of every work whicli I summon back Into exlstence by placlng my corisclousness at Its disposal. 1 give It not only exlstence, but awareness of exlstence."" Thls would mean tliat consclousness forms the polnt at whlch autllor and reader converge, and at tlie same time it woulcl result In the cessation of the temporary self-allenation that occurs to tlie reader when hls consclousness I~rlngs to llfe the Ideas formulated Ily tlie author. This process gives rise to n form of comtnonlcatlori whicli, Iiowever, according to Poulet, Is tlependcnt on two condltlons: the Ilfe-story of tlie autllor nillst be sliut out of tlie work ant1 tlre lndlvidual dlspositlon of tlie reader must he shut out of ihe act of reading. Only then can the tliou~litsof tlie author take place subJectivelyIn tlie reader, wlio thinks whnt Ile Is not. I t follows that the work ltselfr~iust be thought of ns a consclousness, because only In thls way Is there an adequate basls for tlie author-reader relationship -a relatlonship that can only come about through the negatlorl of tlie author's own llfestory and the reader's own dlsposltlon. Thls conclusion is actually drawn by Poulet when lie describes tlie work as the ~el~presentatlon or maierlallzatlon of consclousness: "And so 1 ought no1to hesitate to recognize that so long as It Is animatedby tlils vltal lnbreathlng lnsplred by the act of r'eadlng, a work of literature becomes (at the expense of the reader whose own llfe It suspends) a sort of human being, that It Is a mind consclous of Itself and constltutlng ltself In me as the subject of its own object^."^" Even though It Is difficult to follow such a substantlalist conceptlon of the consclousness that constitutes itself In tlie literary work, there are, nevertheless, certaln polnts In Poulet's argument that are wortli holdlng onto. But they should be developed along somewhat dllTer. ent lines. I f reading removes the subject-object dlvision that constitutes all

perception, It follows that tlie reader wlll be 'occupied' by the

26. Ibld., p. 56. 27. Ibld., p. 59. 28. Ibld.

tliouglits of the author, and these In their turn wlll cause the drawlng of new 'boundaries.' Text aricl reader no longer confront each other a s object ant1 subject, bttt Instead tlie 'dlvlslon' takes place wlthln the reader hiniself. I n tlilnkl~ig tlie thoughts of another, his own Indlvldu. ality teniporarlly recedes into tlie background, slnce i t is supplanted by these allell tliotlglits, wlilcli now hecome the theme on whlch 1 1 1 s attention i s focussed. As we read, there occurs an artificial division of our personnllty, because we take as a theme for ourselves something that we are not. Consequently when readlng we operate on different levels. For although we may he tlilnklng tlie thoughts of someone) 'else, wliat we are wlll not disappear. completely-It wlll merely rrninln n more or less powcrfrtl vlrtrtal 'force. l'llus, In readlng tliere are I licse two lcavcls-~glIc~~mcI-nn&l~erea~\~irlu~tLI~e'-whlch --'-..- ".-. arc ncvcr co~nl,letcly cut olT from eecll otller. lntlccd, we can only nlnkc sorneone else's tliotrglits Into an n1)sorhlng theme for ourselves, ~xovldetl tlie vlrtt~nl 1~:rckgrorrncl of our own personallty can adapt to it. Every text we rend tlrnws a dlkrent horrndary wlthln our personall. ly, so tIi:rt tlie virtual I>nckgroun(l ( t l ~ ereal 'me') will take on a tlini.rcrit form, accortling to thc theme of the tcxt concerned. Thls Is Inevltal,le, I( only for thc fnct rIi:~t tlie relatlonslill~ I)ctwern alien tlienie :111tl virtual I~:~ckgrotr~itl Is what riiekes It possible for tlie urifamlllnr to be understood. W. Hardlng, I n tliis context there Is a revealing remark mntle by I). argulng ngnlnst the ltlea of Itleritification with what Is rencl: "What Is sometimes called wish.fillfillnlent In novels and plays can . . . more plnusll>ly be described ns wlsh.formulntlon or the tlefinition of desires. l'he cultural levels at wlilch It works mny vary wldely; the process Is the same:. . . I t secriis nenrer the truth . . . to say that fictions contribute to defining tlie rentler's or spectnror's vnlues, and perhaps stlniulatl~ighls desires, rather tlian to srlppose t1iat they grntlfy deslre by some meclinnlsrn of vlcnrlot~s exliericn~e." ~~ In the nct of readlng, Iinvlng to think sonietlilng th;rt we have not yet experienced does not nienn only 1,eing In a position to conceive or such actsof conception ;Ire even untlerstand It: It also means ~ l i a t possll,le and successfrrl to tlie degree tlint thcy 1e:ltl to sometlilng being formulated In us. R,r someone else's tlioirgllts can only take a form in our consciousness If, In the process, our unformulated factrlty for declplierlng those thouglits Is broitglil Into plity-a faculty which,
'

L,-=-.k

'

29. 1.1. W. Ilarclln~, "Psyclloln~lcal Processes In I l l e R e a c l l n ~ nf Flcrltrn," In A(~rhur1cs 1 1 1 the Afode~rr~ tlbrkd, ell. Il2rolcl Oshornr (I.ondon, 196H), 1'1). 3 I 3 T.

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act of deciphering, also formulates itself. Now slnce this .ion is carrled out on terms set by someone else, whose 5 are the theme of our reading, It follows that the formulation -- - . . 'aculty for deciphering cannot be along our own Ilnes of orlentatlon. llereln lies the (1lalectical structure of reading. The need to declpller glves us the chance to forlnulate our own declpherlng capacity-i.e., we brlng to the fore an element of our being of whlch we are not dlrectly conscious. The production of the meaning of literary texts-which we discussed In connection with formlng the 'gestalt' of the text-does not merely entali the discovery of the unformulated, which can then be taken over by the active imagination of the reader; it also entalls the possibility that we may formulate ourselves and so dlscover what had previously seemed to elude our consclousness. These are the ways In which readll~gliterature glves us the chance to formulate the unformulated.

STANLEY FISH
I1 Is lempllng l o compare Stanley Fish's current poslllon in lllerary crlllclsm wllh lhal ol Rlcherd Rorly's In philosophy.* Rorly Is lrylng l o do whal he says Willgensleln and Heldegger dld-lo work oul "honorable terms on whlch phllosophy mlghl surrender lo poetry" (1 1). This would mean glvlng up the correspondence lheory 01 language for a sell. expresslon theory. The correspondence lheory Is poslllvlstic and leleological and assumes Ihal every succeeding generellon Is galllng closer lo llndlng a way of expressing "tiulh," lo whlch language more or less edequalely corresponds. It Is lhls search for "lrulh." Iha lradllional obsession 01 phllosophy, lhal Rorly says we musl abandon now. lmlead o l a reallty "out Ihere." each new phllosophy expreeses "Jusl one more human project, jusl one more sel of melephors, . . one more redes. crlpllon of lhlngs lo be Rled alongside all the olhers" (14). For demonslra llon we now subslllule dlalecllc; for correspondence we subslllule coherence: for discovery we eubslllule self.creallon, Whether our language corresponds to anylhlng oul there Is lrrelevanl now. Rorly quoles Wllllam James' accounl ol hls own blindness when he discovered a slle In Ihe Appalachians lhal had once been vlrgln forest and was now a hideous muddy ulcer wllh tree slumps, a log cabin, and a plgpen. To the people In Ihe cabln, however, the elle was a profound personal vlclory, an occaslon for prlde end the culllvallon of crops. James clalmed lo feel chasllsed when he understood lhls version of Ihlngs. Freud's work, lor Rorly, was deslgnad lo open us up lo slmilar examples of allernalive vlslons -"prlvele poems of Ihe perverl, sedisl, end lunellc: as rlchly lexlured and 'redolent of morel mamorles' as our own lile" (14). Fish's plea lor persuasionover demonslrellon In literary crillclsrn seems l o parallel Rorly's subslllullon of coherence over correspondence. However, where Flsh dlflers wllh Rorly Is In Ihe relellve humility of Ihe parllcipenls: or lo put il another way. In Flsh'e double allllude loward "lrulh." When we hold cerlaln beliefs we have no doubt about lhelr Irulh. We know for Carlaln lhey ere true, while we are holdlng them. And If someone polnls out lo us lhal we have held qulle dlflerenl beliefs and lhal consequently we should be skepllcel aboul the Rnallly of our currenl ones, we are Incapable of such skepllclsm. One's perspecllve Is accesslble lo d w b l only when one no longer holds 1 1 . Al lhal polnl one hokls a new posillon whlch can be doubled by olhers bul no1 by oneself. When

* Richard Rorry. "The

Conringeng of Lan~ua~e." Lo~rdon Rer~lerro f Hooks (I7 Aprll 1986) 3-6; "The Conlln~ency of Sellhood." Lotfdotr Reuluw o f Bookr(f3 May 1986) 11-15.