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Tlie Reading Process Phenon~cnologicalApproacl~Translaled wit11 David Ilcnry Wllso~ i

Ihe phenomenological theory of art lays full stress on the ideathat, In considering a literary work, one must take lnto account not

only the actual text but also, and In equal measure, tlie actlonsinvolved In responding to that text. Thus Roman lngarden conirontsthe structure o i he literary text with the ways in which I t can bekotikretisiert (realized).' The text as such olfers different "schema-tised vlews"I through which the subject matter of the work can cometo ilght, but the actual brlnglng to Ilght Is an actlon of KonkretisatiotiI f his 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;lbeco~npletelydelltical wlth tlle text, or with tlle realization of the text,but in fact must Ile halfway between the two. The work is more thanthe text, for the text only takes on life when It is realized, andfurthermore the realization is by no means independent of theindividual disposition of the reader-though this in turn is actedupon by the different patterns of the text. The convergence of textand reader brings the literary work lnto existence, and tllls conver-TE ReADNo PRO CF ~S:A PPNOMNOOGCA APPROACII, lser from They Wolf~an~Implied Reader trans. wlth David Henry Wilson. E ~ i f l l l s l ~ronalatlon copyri~llt@1974 Johns tlopklns Unl\ erslty Press. Reprinted by per~nlsslon f Johns Ilopklns

1. Cf. Roman Inbarden, m Erkerl~~etres lllerarlschet~Krttrstrr~erhrTOhlngcn,19681, pp 49 IT.2. For a detnlled dIscu.uinn of this term see Roman lqarden, Dm ll~erarlscheKuns1u1erk Tubingen, 1960 , pp 270 fi

l ' l ~ c Rvadil~g'rc~ccss: Pl~c~ion~enolodcal 4 5pproach

gence can never be precisely plnpolnted, but must always remalnvlrtual, as It Is not to Ile Identified either wlth tl ie reallty of the text orw i ~ hhe Irtdividual disposition of the reader.I t Is the virn~al ity f the work that gives rise to its dynamic nature,ant1 his in turn the preconditlo~lor the erects that the work callsforth. As the reader uses the various perspectives orrered Il ln l by thetext i n order to relate the patterns and the "schematlsetl vlews" toone another, l ie sets the work In motlon, ant1 1111svery process resultsultimately In the awakenln~of responses wlthin himself. Thus,reacling causes the literary work to unfold Its Inherently dynamiccharacter. That thls is no new dlscovery Is apparent from referencesmade even in the early days of the novel. Laurence Sterne remarks In

Tri ~tram harldy: ".. . no author, wllo understands tlie just bound-arles of decorum and goocl-breetllng, would presume to thln:r all:Tlle truest respectwhich you can pay to the reader's understantllng, isto llalve tlils matter amlcahly, and leave hlm somet liing to Imaglne, Inhis turn, as we1l as yourself. For my own part, am eternal ly payinghlm co~npllments f this kind, and do all that lies I n my power tokeep his imaglnatlon as busy as my own."' Sterne's conception of aliterary text Is lh3t it is sometlllng like an arena In wi ~i cheader andauthor participate in a game of t ile Imagination. If t ile reader wereglven the whole story, anti there were noth ing eft for h im to do, thenhis Imaglnatlon would never enter tl ie field, the result woul(1 be theboredom which Inevitably arlses when everything is laid out cut andtlried hefore us.A literary text must tllerefore be conceived In such away that i t wil l engage the reader's irnaglnation in the task of worklng jthings out for hlmself, for readlng is only a pleasure when i t is active- and creative. In llis process of creativlty, he text may either not go far.enou@h,or may go too far, SO we may say that boredom and overstrail1form the boundaries beyond wlrlcll the reader wil l leave the field ofplay.?'he extent to which the 'unwritten' part of a text stimulates thereader's creatlve ~~articipatlons brought out by an observatlo~i rVirginia Woolf's In her study of jarte Arcstei~:

Jane Austen Is rhus a mlstrrss of much deeper emotion thanappears upon he surfnce. She stiniula~ess to supply what Is notthere. Wlli~tshe ofTers is, apparently, a trifle, yet Is composedofso~netillnghat expands In the reader's mind and endows wlth

3. Lir~renccSterne, nisrram Shatfe)~lantlon, 1956), 11, 11:79.


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be most enduring form o f ife scenes wllic li are outwardly trlvial.Jways the stress is la id upo n charac er. I' he turns and twists~f he dialogue keep us o n the tenterhooks of suspense. Ourttentloa is half upon the present momell[, half upon theluture. . Iiere, indeed, In 1111sunlinlslled and In tlie mainInferio r story, are a ll the elem ents o f Jane Austen's greatness.'?'he u nwrltt en aspects of apparently tr lvlal scenes and the unspokendia logue wi th ln the " turns and twlas" not on ly draw the reader in tothe action but also lead hi m o shade in he many outl lnes suggestedby he given situations, so that these take on a real ity of heir own. Butas the reader's imaginat ion animates these 'outlines,' they i n urn wi llinfluence the erect o f the wrl tten part o f the text. Thus begins awhole dynamlc process: the wri tten text imposes certain i lm i~ s n i tsunwr l t ten impl lca tlons In order to prevent these f rom becoming tooblurred and hazy, but at the same time these implications, worke d outby the reader's imagination, set the given situation against a back-ground which ent lows i t wi th far greater signi l icance than i t mighthave seemed to possess o n i ts own. I n this way, tr ivlal scenessuddeniy take on the shape of an "entiur lr ig form o f l i re." Whatconstitutes thls form Is never named, let alone explainetl in til e text,a l though I n fact I t Is the e nd product o f the in teract lon between textand reader.

'I'lie questlon now arlses as to how far such a process can beadequately described. For thls purpose a phenomenological analyslsrec on~ men ds tself, especla lly since the som ewhat sparse observa.l ions h l ther to made of t l ie psychology of read lng tend main ly to b epsychoanalytical, and so are restr icted to the i l lustration o f predeter-mined ideas concern ing the unconscious. We shall, however, take acloser look later at some worth-while psychological observations.As a starting point for a phenomenological analysis we mlghtexamine the way In wh ich sequent sentences act up on one another.Thls is of especlal Importance In l terary texts in vlew o f the fact thatthey t lo not cor resj>o~l t lo any objective real i ty ot~tsiclehemselves.The wor ld presented by l i te rary texts is constructed out o f what

Vlr8 ln la Wocllf The Cornrnotr Reader lrsl Serles in on don, t957), p 174.

lhc Readlng Proccss: A Phcnomcnologlcal Approacl~ 4 7Ingarden has cal led itttetttiotrale atzkorrelate (Intentlonal sentencecorrelatlves):

Sentences lln k up i n diiTerent ways to form more comp lexuni ts o f mean ln~hat reveal a very varied stnlcture ~i v i n gise tosuch entities as a short story, a novel, a dialogue, a tlrama, ascientific theory. . . I n he final analysis, there arlses n partictrlarworld, with component parts de~ermln ed n thls way or that, anclwlth a l l the variations that may occur wit hln these parts-all thisas a purely Intentlonal correlative or a complex o f sentelices. Ift l l l s complex finally forms a Ilterary work, call the witole sum oisequent lntentlonal sentence correlatlves tlie 'worltl presented'In he work?

?'his world, however, does not pass before tlie reader's eyes like afilm. Th e sentences are "com ponen t parts" Insofar as they makestatements, claims, or observatlons, or convey Informatlon, and soestabl ish various perspectives In the text. Dut they remain only"component partsu-they are not the sum total of the text itself. Forthe intentional correlatives disclose su l~ tle onnections whlch Indl-vldually are less concrete than the statements, claims, and observa-tions, even though these only take on th eir real meaningfulnessthrough the interaction o f t l ieir correlatives.Ho w Is one to conce ive t l ie connection between the correlatlves? tmarks those polnts at whic h the reader is able to 'cl im b aboard' thetext. l i e has to accept certain given perspectives, b ut I n dolng so heinevitably causes them to interact. Wh en Ingarden speaks of Inten-tlonal sentence correlatlves In I l temture, the statements made orInformatlon conveyed In the sentence are already In a certain sensequalified: t l ie sentence does no t conslst solely of a statement-which,after all, would be absurd, as one can only make statements aboutthings that exlst-but alms at something bey ond what it actua lly says.Thls I s true o f al l sentences In l i terary works, and i t i s th rough theInteractlon o f hese sentences that their com mon aim is ful f i l led. Thisis what glves them the lr ow n special qual l ty In i terary texts. I n heircapacity as statements, observations, purveyors of Informatlon, etc.,they are always indlcatlons ofsom ethlng that Is to come, the structureo f whlc l i is foreshadowed by thelr specific content.They set in motion a process out of which emerges the actualcontent o f the text Itself. In describing man's inner consciousness of5. Ingarden, lbrn Krkentwn des Ilremrfschetr Kutrslwerks p 29.


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ne, Husserl once remarked: Every origln:~llyconstrucl ive processInspired by pre-intentions, which constrilct and collect the seed ofhat Is to come, as such, and bring it to frultion. or til ls brlrlgil lg to~lt ion,he llterary text lieeds tlie reader's Itn:tgination, which gives

sliape to the intenctlon of correlatives foreshatlowed in structure bythe sequence of the sentences. Musserl's observation draws ourattention to a point that plays a not insignificant part 111the process ofreadlng. The individual sentences not only work togetlier to shntle Iniwhat Is to come; they also form an expectatlon n this regard. Iusserlcalls this expectation preintentions. As this structure Is characteris-tic of ll sentence correlatlves, the Interaction of these correlatlveswill not be a fulfilllnent of the expectation so much as a continualmodlficatlon of it.For thls reason, expectations are scarcely ever fulfi llecl in trulyliterary texts. ~f hey were, then such texts would be confineti to t ileindlvldualization of a glven expectation, and one woulrl Inevltahlyask what such an intention was supposed to acliieve. Stn~igelyenough, we feel that any confirmatlve effect-such as we im(>lic itlydemand of expository texts, as we refer to the objects they are nieantto present-is a defect in a literary text. For the more a textIndividualizes or confirms an expectatlon It has initially aroused, themore aware we become of its didactic purpose, so that at best we canonly accept or reject the tllesis forced upon us. More often than not,the very clarity o f such texts wil l make us want to free ourselves fromtllelr clutches. But general ly the sentence correlatives of literary textsdo not develop in his rig id way, for the expectations they evoke tendto encroach on one another Insuch a manner that they areg2ntlnual:ly m0dlfied.a~one-reads. One mlght simpll fy by saying that eachIntentional sentence correlative opensupa particular horizon, wl\ichis modified, i f not completely changed, by succeeding sentences.While tliese expectations arouse Interest in what is to come, thesubsequent modification of them will also have a retrospective effecton what has already been read. This may now take on a differentsignificance from that which i t had at the moment of reading.Whatever we have read sltiks in to our memory and Is foreshort-

: ened. I t may later be evoked again ant1 set agalnst a differentbackground wlth the result that the reader is enabled to develophltherto unforeseeable connections. The memory evoked, however,6. Edmund tluaserl, Zrtr Ph~Yt~onrer:ol~@es Itmurut:%eltbewrrsrtseltr esammelleKrrhr (The Ha~ue.1966). 1052.

Thc Rrndltt~Proccss: A Pltet~on~cnolo~lcnl 4.39pproach

can never reassume its original sliape, for thls woultl mean thatmemory and perception were identical, which is rn:lnifestly not so.Tile new backgrounrl brings to I l ~ l i rnew aspects of what we hntlcomniittetl to niemory: co~iverselyhese, in turn, slietl their ligli t onthe new hackgrountl, tllus arousing niore co~nl~lex~titlcii)atlo~is.Thus, the reader, in establ isliing these Interrelations Iwtween past,present and future, actually causes tlie text to reveal its i~otential ,rnulti~>licityfconnections. These connections are the l~rocluc~l ~rd

~reader's mind working on the raw material of the text, tlloi~glihere not the text Itself-for tli is conslsts just of sentences, statements,

infonnatlon, etc.'Tliis is why the reader often feels involvet l in events wli icl i, at the

tlme of readlng, seem real to Iiim, even tlrough fact they are very Tarfrom Ills own reality. Tlie fact tliat conipletely differelit reatlers can I)edifferently affected hy tlie 'reality' o f a particular text is ampleevidence of tlie degree to which literary texts transform reading nto acreative process that is Tar al~ovemere perception of what is written.The literary text activates our own faculties, enablilig us to recreatetile wor ld i t presents. The product of thls creative activity is what wemlglit call the virtual dir~iension f the text, whicll entlows it wltl l itsreality. Tllis vlrtual dimension Is not the text Itself, nor is it tlieimagination of the reader: It Is tlie coni ing together of text and-Imagination. _ - .. _

s we have seen, ti le activity o f reading can be cl~aracter ized s asort of kaleidoscope of perspectives, prelntentions, recollections.Every sentence contalns a preview of the next atlrl f or~ns klnt l ofviewfinder for what is to come; and tliis i n turn cha~~geshe 'preview'and so becomes a 'viewfint ler' for what 113s bcen rei ltl. 'i'li is wlioleprocess represents the fulfillment of the potential, unexl)ressedreality o f the text, but i t Is to be seen only as a framework Tor a greatvariety of means by whlch tl ie vlrtilal ditl~ension iay I)e hroitglit Intobeing. The process of anticipation and retrospcctlon itself does notby any means develop in a srnootlt flow. ingarden iias already drawnattention to this fact and ascribes a quite remarkable slgnific;lnce to It:

Once we are Immersed In the flow of .Tarrdorrketr (setllrnce.~hough~),e are ready, after completing [he tlwlugiit of onesentence, to thlnk out the 'contlnr~atlon,'also in the form of asentence-and t i la t Is. in the form ola sentence tl iat connects upwith the sentencewe have just thought tl~rough. n i l l s w y lireprocess olreadlng goes elTortleisly lorward. But If by chance thefoliowlng sentence has no tanglbie connection wilatever witll


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i ~ eentence we have just thought throug h, there then comes a)lockage in the stream of thougllt. Thls hlatus Is linked wlth anore or less actlve surprlsc, or wit11 Ind lgn atlo ~l.I ' i~ isblockagenust l~ overcome If the re atling Is to flow once more.'The hiatus that blocks the flo w o f sentences is, In Ingarden's eyes, theprodu ct of cllance, and is to Ile regarde d as a flaw; tliis is typical of hi saclllerence to the classical Idea o f art. If one regards tlle sentencesequence as a continual flow, this implies tllat the anticipationaroused by one sentence wil l generally be realized b y t i le next, andthe frustration of one's expectations wi ll arouse feelings of exaspera-t ion. And yet l i terary texts are ful l of unexpected tw is~ s nd turns, andfrustration of expectations. Even In t l le sinlplest story there is I~ ou ndto be some kln d o f blockage, if orlly 1)ec:ttlse n o tale can ever II e tol dIn its entirety. Inde ed, it Is only thro t~gh nevlta l~le missions that astory gains its dynamism. Thus whenever t he flow Is interrup ted andwe are led off in unexpected directions, the oppo rtunity is given to ust o I ~ r l n gnto play our o wn faculty for establishing con~lect ions-forf i l l ing i n the gaps lef t by the text i tself?These gaps have a different effect on'the process of antlclpntlonand retrospection, and thus on the 'gestalt' of the virtual d lmension,for they may be f i l led in dlKerent ways. For t l ~i season, one text Ispotentially capable of several different reallzatlons, and n o reatlingcan ever exhaust the ful l potent ial, for each lnt l lv ldual reader wi l l f i l lin the gaps In his own way, t l ierel ly excluding the various otherpossibilit ies; as he reads, he wi ll make llis ow11 de cis io~ is to h o w t l ~ egap is to be f i l led. In this very act the tlynamics of reading arerevealed. By making his decision I le implicit ly acknowledges theinexliaus tibiilty o f the text; at the same tinie it is this very inexhausti.bi l l ty hat forces him o make his decision. With ' t raditional ' texts t il lsprocess was more or less unconscious, but m ot le r~ iexts frequentlyexp loit i t quite de liberately. They are oftell so fragmentary that one'sat lent lon is almost exclusively oc cu l~ie d ith the search for connec-t ions between the fragments; the object o f this is not lo c onll~l ic atetlie 'spectrum ' o f connections, so m uch as to make us aware of thenature of our own capac ity for pr o v i di ~~ ginks. I n suc ll cases, tlie text7. In~ ard cn, onr Erhetrtrotr nos llterorlschetr Klrrrstrrlu,Ps, 1 . 32.8. For a more de~a lied lsc\~sslon f the f\~nctl on f finl~s n literary lex ls secW l f ~ a n ~ser, lntleterrnlnacy anti tile Renders Resimnse In Prose Plctlon,Aspects n Nanatlrle (Engllab Ins titute Essays), cd. J l l l l l l s Mlllcr (New York.1971 . pp. 1-45.

hc Readlng ~rocess: Phenomenological Approach 441refers hack dire ctly to our own preconceptlons-which are revealedby the act of Interpretat ion that Is a basic element o f the readingprocess. With all literary texts, then, ufe may say that the readingprocess 1s selective, and the p otential text is Infinitely r lciler tllan.any-- \,of i t s i n d l v i d ~ ~ ~ z ~ i o n s ~ T I ~ ~ ~ i s____ _ borne out by illeLfact that asecond~ read ing f a p iece o f 1 1 t e r a t u r e ~ o f t e n ~ ~ i 6 d u c ~ S ~ a - d f f ~ ~ ~.impression from the first. The reasons for thls may lie -in rhe reader'sownchange~ofcircumstances,still, th e text must be such as to allowthis variation. O n a second readlng famil iar occurrences n ow tend toappear In a new l i g i~ t nd seem to be at t imes corrected, 31 t imesenriched.I n every text there is a potentia l time sequence which the readernlust Inevitably realize, as i t is impossible to nbsorb even a short textIn a single mom ent. Tllus the re ading process always involves view ingthe text through a perspective that Is continua lly on he move, linki ngup the d ifferent phases, and so constructing what we have called thevirtual dimension. Th ls dimension, o f course, varies al l the t ime weare readlng. However, when we have finished the text, and read itagain, clearly our extra knowledge wil l result in a different timesequence; we sha ll tend t o establish connections by referrlng to our [awareness of what Is to come, and so certain aspects of the text w il lassume a significance we did not attach to them on a first reading,wli l l e others wi l l recede Into t l ie background. I t sa common enou gh'experience for a person to say that on a second reading he noticedthings he had missed when he read t i le bo ok for t i le f irst t ime, hutthis is scarcelysurprising In view o f l le fact that t l le second t ime he islooking at the text from a different perspective. The time sequencethat he realized on h is first reading cannot possibly be rei~ eate tl n asecond reading, and this unrepeatability is bound to result inmodifications of his reading experience. This is not to say that thesecond reading is 'truer' than the first-they are, quite simply,different: the reader establislles the virtu;ll dimen sion of the text byrealizing a n ew tim e sequence. Thus even o n repeated viewings a textallows and, indeed, induces innovative reading.

In whatever way, and underw llatever circumstances the reader maylink tlie different phases o f the text together, It w il l always be theprocess of ant icipat ion and retrospect ion that leads to the formationof t l ie virtual dlmenslon, which In turn transforms the text into anexperience for the reader. The way Inwhlc h thls experience comesabout through a process of cont inual modlf icat lon Is closely akin tothe way Inwhich we gather experience in Ilfe. An d tllus the 'reality' of


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. . - - . . .- . _ - __ . _ _. - . .

442 Wolfgang lser

he reading experience can Illuminate baslc patterns of real experl.mce:

We have the experlence ofa world, not uliderstood s a systemof relations wli ich wholly determine each event, but ns an opentotailty the synthesis of which is inexl~austll,le. . . .From themoment that experience-that is, tlie opening on to our defacroworld-Is recognlzed as the beginning of knowledge, there Isno longer any way of distlngulshin~ level of aprlorlt ruths andone or factual ones, what the world must necessarily be and whati t actually is?

The manner In whlch the reader experiences the text will reflect hlsown disposit lon, and i n this respect the literary text acts as a kind ofmlrror; but at the same tlme, the reallty whlch thls process helps tocreate Is one that w ll l be tferenf from I lls own (slnce, normally, wetend to be bored by texts that present us with things we already knowperfectly wel l ourselves). Thus we liave the apparently paradoxicalsituation In which the reader Is forced to reveal aspects of himself i norder to experlence a reallty wlilch Is dlrerent from hls own. TheImpact thls reallty makes on him wi ll depend largely on the extent towhich he himself actively provides the unwritten part of the text, andyet in supplying all the missing links, he must think In terms ofexperlences different from his own; Indeed, It Is only by leavlngbehind the famlliar world of his own experience that the reader cantruly participate in tile adventure the literary text orers him.

We have seen that, durlng the process of reatling, there Is an actlveInterweaving of anticipation and retrospection, wlllch on a secondreadlng may turn Into a kind o f advance retrospection. The Impres.slons that arlse as a result of thls process wl ll vary from Indlvl tlual toIndlvidual, but only wlthln the llmits Imposed by the wrltten asopposed to the unwritten text. I n he same way, two people gazing atthe nlght sky may both be look ing at the same collection of stars, butone wi ll see the Image of a plougll, and the other wl ll make out adipper. The 'stars' i n a literary text are fixed; the l lnes that loit1 them9. hi btcrleau.Ponly, Phetrometrolog,~oJPerceptlott, trans. Colln Smlth New York,1962),pp. 219,221.

,... _. .__ . . . .- -.. I .___Tile Readng Procrss: A Pl~enn~llcnnlngicalpprnach 44

are variable. The author o f the text may, of course, exert plenty ofInfluence on tlie reatler's Imaglnatlon-lie has the whole panoply ofnarrative teclinlques at his tlispnsal-hut no author worth his salt wil lever attempt to set the ulhole picture before his reatler's eyes. I f hedoes, he wlll very quickly lose Ills reader, for It Is only by actlvatinp;the reatler's Imaglr~ationhat lhe author can hope to involve him andso reallze tile lntentlons of his text.

Gllher t Ryle, in hls analysls of Imagination asks: How can aperson fancy that he sees somethlng, wi thout reallz ing that he I s notseeing It? He answers as follows:

Seeing tIelveilyn [the name of a mountaln] In one's mlnd's eyedoes not entail, what seeing Helvellyn and seeing snapshots ofHelvellyn entail, ti le liavlng of visual sensations. I t does involvethe tho~lght f havlng a view of Ilelvellyn and I t is therefore amore sophlsticaletl operation than that of havlng a view ofIlelveiiyn. It s one utill.tatlonamong others ofthe knowledge ofhow llelvellyn sliouitl look, or, In one sense of the verb, It isthinking how It should look. Tire expecta~lons hlch are fulfil ledin tlie recognitionat sight of Ilelvellyn are not indeed fulfilled InplcturlngIt but the picturing of it Is something like a reiicarsal ofgettlng them fulfilled. So far from picturing lnvolvlng the havlngof faint sensations, or wraiths of sensatlons, It Involvesmissinglust what one woilld bc due to get, I f one were seeing the

I f one sees the mountain, tli cn of course one can no longer ImagineIt, and so the act o f picturing the mountain presupposes Its al~sence.Similarly wlth a iterary text we can only picture things wliich are notthere; the written part of the text gives us the knowleclge, hut i t Is theunwritten part tllat gives us the opportunity t o picture tlllngs; Indeedwithout the elements of indeterminacy, the gaps In the text, weshould not be able to use our imaglnation.ll

The truth of this ohservatlon Is Imne out hy the experlence manypeople have on seeing, for Irlstance, the fi lni o la novel. While readingToin Jottes they may never have had a clear conception of what thehero actually looks Iike, hut on seeing the fi lm, some may say, That'snot how I imagined him. ?'he point here is tliat the reader of Tomones is able to visualize tile hero vlrtually for h imself, and so his

10. Gill)ert Ryle The Cotrcepl oJlfhrd (l~arrnondsworth, 9Gfl),p. 25511.Cf. Iser. Indeterminacy. pp. I 1 f ;42 If


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I \unlfgang iseron senses the vast number of possibilities; the momentislbliities are narrowed down to one complete and immuta..e, th e Im agination is put out o f action, and we feel we havebeen clieated. This may p erliaps be an oversimplification ofthe process, but I t does Illustrate plainly the vital richness of po tentialthat arises out of the fact that the hero in th e novel m ilst be pictured

and cannot be seen. With the novel tlie reader must use hlsimagination to synthesize the in6rnlatlon given him, and so hisperception is simult;~neously icher and more private; wit h the film Ileis confined merely to pllysical perception, and so whatever Ileremenll,ers of the wor ld he had picture d Is brr ~ta ily ancelled out.

The 'plcturing' that is done by our irnagln;~tion s only one of theactivities through which we form the 'gestalt' of a literary text. Wehave alreatly discussed the process of anticipation and retrospe ction,ant1 to thls we must add tlle process of gr~up1118ogether all tlledifferent aspects of a text to form the conslstency that the reader wil lalways be In search of. Whlle expectations may be contlnuallymodified, and lm a~ es ontlnually expanded, the reader wil l stillstrive, even if unconsciously, to fit eve rytlilng togetlier Ina conslstentpattern. In the reading of Images, as I n the hearing of speech, i t isalways hard to distlngulsh what Is given to us from what wesupplement In the process of project1011 w l~ lc li s triggered o l l 11yrecognition . . it s the guess of the beholder that teas the medley offorms and colours for coherent meaning, crystallizing it Into shapewhen a consistent interpretation has been found. 12 Ry groupingtogether the written parts of the text, we enable them to Interact, weobserve the direction In wliich they are leading us, and we projectonto them the consistency which we, as readers, require. ?'his'gestalt' must inevitably be colored by our own cllaracteristic selec-tion process. For It Is not given by the text itsell; it arlses from themeeting between the written text and the individual mind of thereader with its own particular history of experience, Its own con-sciousness, its own ou tlook. T lle 'gestalt' is no t the true m eaning ofthe text; at best it is a configurative meanina; . . comprellension is

II Gornhrlch, A rl a t ~ dllvslotr (Inndon, 1962). p. 204.

Thc Rcnding Process: A Phcnomcnologlcal Approach 5an individu al act of seeing.things-together, and only that. ') With aliterary text such comprehension is inseparable from tile reader'sexpectations, and where we have expectations, there too we have oneof tlie m ost potent weapons in the writer's armory-illusion.Whenever consistent reading suggests itself . . iilusion takesover. Illusion, says North rop ny e, Is fixed or defina l~le, nd realityis best unders lood as its negatlon. 15 ?'he 'gestalt' o f a text norm allytakes on (or, rather, is given) tllis fixed or definable outline, as this isessential to our own und erstantling, but on the oth er hand, if readingwere to consist of notlllng but an uulnterrupted building up ofIllusions, i t would be a suspect, if not downright dangerous, process:instead of brin ging us into contact with reality, It wor~ i t lwean us awayfrom realities. Of course, there is an element of 'escnplsm' In allliterature, resulting from thls very creation of illusion, but there aresome texts which offer nothing but a harmonious world, purified of ia l l contradiction and deliberately excluding anything that mightdlsturb the il lusio n once estal>lished, and these are the texts that wegenerally clo not l ike to classify as liter ary. Women's magazines and'the brasher forms of the de tective story might be clted as examples.__ 9 ,However, even If an overdose d .lllu slo n Inay lead to triviality,tld;does not niean that tlie process or Illusion-l~ulldlng sliould Id eally bedispensed wl tli altoge ther. On tlie contrary, even In texts that appearto reslst the formation o f Illusion, thus drawlng our attention to thecause of this resistance, we still need the ahlding illusion that theresisiance itself Is the consistent pattern underlying the text. This isespecially true of m odern texts, I n which It Is the very precision of thewritten details which increases the proportion of indeterminacy; onedetall appears to c ontradict another, ant1 so slm ultaneot~sly timulatesand frustrates our desire to 'picture,' tlius con tinually causing ourimposetl 'gestalt' of the text t o clisintegrate. Without the formation ofillusions, the unfamiliar world of the text woultl remain unfamiliar;tllrough the illusions, the experlence o k re ti by the text I)ecomesaccessll~le o us, for it is only the illus ion, on its different levels ofconsistency, that makes the experience 'readable.' I f we cannot find(or impose) thls consistency, sooner or later we will put the text1 3 I.ouls Mlnk, l~lstor)'nntl 1:lcllon n Modes of Cornprel~cnslo~~.ctcv l.(/croty

/ l.s/ory 1 ( 1970):553.14. Gomhrlch, Ar/ 4ttd Illrrsloti, p. 278.15. Norllirop Frye. A t ia l om j o C r ( l k ls ~ nN e w Ynrk, 1967). pp. 169 f


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i46 Woifnann ls r

iown. The process Is virtually hermeneutic. The text provokes certainxpectations which In turn we project onto the text In such a way thatve 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 theillusion-maklng of the reader are opposed factors. If lie illusion werecomplete, the polysemantlc nature would vanish; i f the polysemanticnature were ali.powerful, tlie illusion would be totally destroyed.Both extremes are conceivable, but in the individual llterary text wealways find some form of balance between the two conflictingtendencies. The formatlon of Illusions, therefore, can never he total,but it is this very incompleteness that in fact gives It i ts productivevalue.

With regard to the experlence of reading, Walter Pater onceobserved: "For to the grave reader words too are grave; and theornamental word, the figure, the accessory form or colour or refer.ence, i s rarely content to die to thought preciselyat the right moment,but wil l inevitably linger awhile, stirrlng a long 'brainwave' behind tof perhaps quite alien assoc~ations."'~ ven while the reader isseeking a consistent pattern In. he text, he Is also uncovering otherimpulses which cannot be immediately integrated or w ll l even resistfinal integration. Thus the semantic possibilities ,of tile text wil lalways remain far richer than any configurative meaning ormed whilereading. But thls impression is, of course, only to be gained throughreading the text. Thus the configurative meaning can be nothing but ap rspro toto fulfillment of tlie text, and yet t i i i s fuifiliment gives riseto the very richness which it seeks to restrict, and indeed In somemodern texts, our awareness of this rlchness takes precedence overany configurative meaning.This fact has several consequences which, for the purpose ofanalysls, may be dealt with separately, though in the reading processthey will all be working together. As we have seen, a consistent,configurative meanlng Is essential lor the apprehension of an unfa-miliar experlence, which through the process of i llusion-buildlng wecan Incorporate n our own imaginathe world. A t the same time, thisconsistency conflicts wlth the many other possibilities of fulfillment itseeks to exclude, with the result that the configurative meaning is16. Walter Parer. Appruclotlotu (London, 1920 , p. 18.

'l'l~c Rcadng Proccss: Pl~e~~on~cnologlcalpproach 447always accompanied by "alien associations" that do not [it n wlth theillusions formed. The first consequence, then, i s the fact that informlng our Illusions, we also produce at the same time a latentdisturbance of these il lusio~is. trangely enough, this also applies totexts In which our expectations are actually fulfilled-though onewould have thought that the fulfil lment o f expectations would help tocomplete the illusion. "l liusioti wears off once the expectation Isstepped up; we take i t for granted and want more.""

The experiments In gestalt psychology referred to by Gombrlch InAr t tid ~ u l o nmake one thing clear: . . . thoiigh we may beintellectually aware of the fact that any given experience must he anillusion, we cannot, strictly speaking, watch ourselves having anili~sion."'~ow, If Illusion were not a transitory state, this wouldmean that we could be, as it were, permanently caught up In It. And ifreading were exclusively a matter of producing iliuslon-necessarythough this Is for the understandingof an unfamillar experience-weshould run the risk of falling victlm to a gross deception. But it Isprecisely during our readlng that the transitory nature of the i liusioni s revealed to the full.

s the formatlon of illusions Is constantly accornpanled by "alienassoclatlons" whlch cannot be made conslste~lt ith the illusions, [liereader constantly has to lift tlie restrictions he places on the 'mean-ing' o f the text. Since I t is ile who builds the illusions; lie oscillatesbetween involvement In and observation of those illusions; he openshimself to the unfamiliar world without being imprlsoned in i t .Through thls process the reader moves into tl ie presence of thefictional world and so experiences the realities of the text as theyhappen.

In the oscil lation between consistency and a1 ien associations,between involvement in and observation of the i llusion, the reader Isbound, to conduct his own balancing operatlon, and It i s thls thatforms the esthetic experlence orered by the llterary text. Iiowever, fthe reader were to achleve a balance, obviously he wo l~ ldhen nolonger be engaged in the process of establlshlng and dlsruptlngconsistency. And since It Is this very process that gives rise to tliebalancing operation, we may say that the Inherent nonachievement ofbalance is a prerequisite Tor the very dynarnlsm of the operatlon. I n17. Gombrich, Art rrd Illrts/ot~p. 5418. Ibld. p. 5.


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llle balat~ccwe Inevltal,ly Ilave to d n r t ottt wit11 certain:t;~tions, he shattering of wl~lcl~s Intgr;ll to the estl~etlcience.Furtliermore, to say merely thnt our exl~cct:~rio~isre sntlstictlIs lo c ~ u l l t yof another serlous amblgt~lty,t first sight sucl~statement seems to deny the obvlous fact that m~tcliof ourenloyment Is derlvetl from surprlses, from betrayals of ourexpectatlons. The solution to thls paradox Is to find some grourldfor a tlistinctlon between surprlse and frustration. Roughly,the dlstinctlon can be made, n terms or the elTects which lhe twokinds of experiences have upon us. Frustatlon blocks or checksactivity. It necessitates new orlentatlon To our actlvlty,if we areto escape the c1t1de sac Consequently, we abandon the frt~strat-Ing oblect and return to blind llnpulse acttvlty. n the otherIiand, surprise merely causes a temporary cessntlon of tlieexplomtory pliase of the experience,a ~ i t la recourse to intensc'co~itenil)l:~tionnd scrutlny. In the latter liIi:~se ile surl)rlslngclenients are seen In their colinectlon with what has gonebefore, wltli the wliole drift of tile experle~ice,nd tlie cnloy-melit ol'tliese v~luess then extremely Intense. I:lnnlly, It appearsthat there must always be some degree of novelty or surprlse Inall these values Il there Is to be aprogressive specllication of thedlrectlon of the total act and any aesrlhetlc experlence lendsto exl~lblt continuous interplay between deductlve andlnductlve ~peratlons.'~

11Is thls Interplay between deduction and inclis~lon ,that lvesrise to tile configuratlve meaning of the text, and not the Indlvldualexpectations, surprlses, or frustrations arlslng from the dliTerentperspectives. Since thls Interplay obviously does not take place In thetext Ilself, but can only come Into belng through the process ofreading, we may conclude that thls process formulates sometlling thatIs unformulated In the text and yet represents Its 'Intention.' Thus, byreading we uncover the unformulated part of the text, and tl~lsveryIndetermlnacy Is the force that drives us to work out a configurativemeaning whlle at the same time givlng us the necessary degree offreedom 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 other19. Rllchle, The-Formal Structure of the Aesthetic Ob(ect, In The Problems ofAusrberlcs ed. Ellseo Vlvas and Murray Krleger New York 1965), pp 230 T

Tltc Rr;~cling Proc~ss: P l i r nnn~r n t i l~~~ l r a lpproach 9

posslhllltles of 'lnterpretatlon,' and so there arlse new areas oflndetermlnacy (tl~oughwe may only he dlmly aware of them, If at a l las we are contlnually making 'declslons' whlch will exclude them).In the course of a novel, for instance, we sometimes find thatcharacters, events, and backgrounds seem to change thelr slgnifl.cance; what really Ilappens Is tha t the other 'possil>ilitles' begin toemerge more strongly, so thnt we become more tllrectly aware ofthem. Indeed, t Is thls very shlfting of perspecllves tllat makes us feelthat a novel Is mucl~more 'true-to-life.'Slnce It Is we ourselves whoestablisl~he levels of interpretation and swllcl~ rom one to anotheras we conduct our halaticing operation, we ourselves Impart to thetext the dynamic llfeliketiess which, In turn, enables us to absorb anilnf8mlliar experlence Into our personal world.

As we read, we oscllli~teo a greater or lesser degree between thehulldlng and the breaking or illusions. In a process or trlal and error,we organlzc and reorganize the various data oNered 11s by the text.These are the glven factors, the fixed points on wliicl~we base our'interpretntion,' trying to fit them togetl~ern the wiry we lhlnk theauthor meant them to be fitted. l:or to percelve, a beholtler mustcrvafo hls own experlence. Ant1 Ills creation must l~~c lud eelationscomparable to those wlllch the orlglnal producer underwent. Theyare not the same In any llteral sense. But wlth the perceiver, as wltllthe artlst, there must be an ordering or the elements of the wllole thatIs In form, although not In detalls, the same as the process oforganlzatlon the creator of the work consciously experienced. With.out an act of recreatlon the object Is not perceived 3s a work of art. 20The act of recreation Is not a smooth or continuous process, hutone wliicl~,n its essence, relies on m ~ g r t h elowto renderIt eficaclous. We look forward, we look back, we decide, we changeour declslons, we form expectatlons, we are shocked by thelrnonfulfillment,we quesllon, we muse, we accept, we reject; thls Isthe dynamlc process of recreatlon. Thls process Is steered by twonlaln structural components wlthln the text: first, a repertolre offamlllar llterary patterns and recurrent Ilterary themes, together withallusions to famlllar soclal and hlstorlcal contexts; second, tech-nlques or strategies used to set the famlliar agalnst the unfamiliar.Elements of the repertolre are contlnually backgrounded or fore-grounded with a resultant strategic overmagnlfication, trivlalizatlon,20. John Dewey, Art Experlet~ceNew York, 1958), p. 54.


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150 Wolf~anglscr

3r even annihilation of the allusion. This defamiliarizatlon_of wliatthe reader thought he recognized is bound to create a tenslon thatwill 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 d if icu lt to connect,so that we are forced to reconsider data we at hrst lield to be perfectlystraightforward. One need only nlentlon the very simple trick, sooften employed by novelists, whereby the author himself takes part Inthe narrative, thus establlshlng perspectlves which would not havearisen out of the mere narration of the events descril~ed.Wayne Boothonce called this the technique of tlie unreliable narrator, to sliowthe extent to whlch a literary device can counterexpectations arisingout o f the literary text. The figure of tli e narrator may act inpermanent oppositlon to the Impressions we niight otherwise form.The question then arises as to whether thls strategy, opposlng tlieformation of llluslons, may be Integrated Into a conslstent pattern,lylng, as It were, 3 level deeper than our orlglnal Irnpresslons. We mayfind t liat our narrator, by opposlng us, I n fact turns us agalnst li lm andthereby strengthens the llluslon he appears to be out to tlestroy;alternatively, we may be so much In doubt that we begln to questlonall the processes that lead us to make interpretative declslons.Whatever the cause niay be, we will find ourselves subjected to thlssame Interplay of Illusion-formlng and illusion.breaking that makesreadingessentially a recreative process.We mlglit take, as a slmple Illustrationof this complex process, theincident inJoyce's Ubse s in whlc li Bloom's cigar alludes to Ulysses'sspear. The context (Bloom's clgar) summons up a particular elementof the repertolre (Ulysses's spear); the narratlve technlque relatesthem to one another as If they were identical. flow are we to'organize' these divergent elements, which, through the very fact thatthey are put together, separate one element so ctearly from the other?What are the prospects here for a conslstent pattern?We might saytllat i t is iro~i ic-at least that is how many renowned Joyce readershave understood it.'2 In tl ~l s ase, Irony would be tile form oforganization that Integrates the material. Rut I f this Is so, what Is theobject of the Irony? Ulysses's spear, or Bloom's clgar?The uncertainty21. Cf Wayne C. Rooth, l~ Rheforlc o WcfIo?~Clllcagn, 1963), pp 21 1 8 339 fl22. Rlchard El l rnann . l l lysses. The D l v l ~ ~ eohocly. In 7 l r v l r r Origir~nIsv ~s011

Grvor Etrgltsb Norw.k ed. Clrorles Shnplro (Derrolr. 1960). p. 247. clasalfiedt ls-par~lculartluslon as mock~l~eroic..

Tltc Rcadl~tgProccss: A Phcnomcnological Approach 4 5. .surrounding this slmple question already puts a straln on theconsistency we have established and, indeed, begins to puncture i t ,especially when other problems make themselves felt as regards theremarkable conjunction of spear and cigar. Various alternatives cometo mind, but the variety alone Is sufficient to leave one with theimpression that tile conslstent pattern has been sliattered, h c l evenif, after a l l one can still believe that irony holds the key to themystery, this irony must be ofa very strange nature; for the formulatedtext does not merely mean the opposite of what llas been formulated.I t may even mean something that cannot be formulated at all. Themoment we try to impose a consistent pattern on the text, dlscrepan-cles are bound to arlse. These are, as It were, the reverse side of thelnterpretatlve coin, an involuntary product of the process that createsdiscrepancies by trying to avoid them. And it Is their very presencethat draws us into the text, compelling us to conduct a creatlveexamination not only o f the text but also of ourselves.l'hls entanglement of the reader Is, of course, vital to any kind oftext, but In the literary text we have the strange sltuatlon tliat thereader cannot know what hls partlc lpatlon actually entails. We knowthat we share In certaln experlences, but we do not know wliathappens to us in the course of thls process. 'Thls Is why, when wehave been particularly Impressed 11y a book, we feel the need to talkabout It; we do not want to get away from it by talking about it-weslmply want to understand more clearly what i t is In which we havebeen entangled. We have undergone an experience, and now wewant to know consciously tuhatwe have experienced. Perhaps thls Isthe prlme usefulness of Ilterary crltlcism-It helps to makeconsciousthose aspects of the text which would otherwise remain concealed inthe subconscious; It satisfies (or helps to satlsfy) our desire to talkabout what we have read.The eflicacy of a llterary text Is brought about by the apparentevocation and subsequent negation of tl ie famlliar, What at firstseemed to be an affirmation of our assumptions leads to our ownrejection of them, thus tendlng to prepare us for a re-orlentation. AndIt Is only when we have outstripped our preconceptions ancl left theshelter of the famlliar that we are in a position to gather newexperlences. s the llterary text Involves the reader In the formationof illuslon and the simultaneous formation of the means whereby thelliusion Is punctured, readingreflects the process by-which-we gain;experience. Once the reader is entangled, hls own preconceptionsrare c6ntiiiuiTTy vertaken.sothat the text becomes his 'present' whlle ,


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

In our analysls of the reading process so far, we have observed threeimportant aspects that form the basis of the reiationslilp betweenreader and text: the process of antlclpation ant1 retrospection, theconsequent unfolding of the text as a living event, and tlie resultantmpression 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 theunfamlliar. But consistency-building is itselfa living process in whlchone Is constantly forced to make selective decisions-and thesedecisions in their turn give a reality to the posslbllities which theyexclude, insofar as tiley may take effect as a latent disturbance of tileconslstency established. This Is what causes tlie reader to be entan-gled in the text-'gestalt' that he himself has produced.

Through thls entanglement the reader Is bound to open hlmself upto the woiklngs of the text and so leave behlnd Ills own preconcep-tlons. 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 '~~eadingreflects the structure of experience to the extent that we mustsuspend the ideas and attitudes that shape our own personality beforewe can experlence the unfamiliar world of the literary text. Butduring this process, something happens to us.

Thls 'something' needs to be looked at in detail, especially as theincorporation of tlie unfamiliar into our own range of experlence hasbeen to a certain extent obscured by an idea very common in literarydiscussion: namely, that the process of a1)sorbing the unfamlllar Islabeled as the i d e n t i f c a t l o n of the reader wlth what i ~ eeads. Oftenthe term 'identlficatlon' Is used as if it were an explanatloti, whereasIn actual fact it is nothing more than a descriptiotl. What is tiormally

I. D.Shaw. Majo r Rarbarcr (London,1964). p. 316.

Thc Reading Prorcss: Ph c~~o n ~cn o l o ~l ca l 5pproach

meant by 'Identification' is the establishment of affinities betweenoneself and someone outslde oneself-a familiar ground on whlchwe arc able to experlence the unfamiliar. The author's alm, though, Isto convey the experlence and, above all, an attitude townrtl that

Iexperlence. Consequently, identlficatlon' not an end In Itself, but astrategem by means of which the autlior stimulates attitudes In thereader.This of course Is not to deny that there does arise a form ofparticipation as one reads; one is certainly drawn into the text in sucha way that one has the feeling that there Is no distance betweenoneself and the events described. This Involvement Is well summedup by tlie reactlon o f a critlc to reading Charlotte Bronte'sJane E y e"We took upJane Ejs-eonewlnter's evening, somewhat plqued at theextravagant commendations we had heard, and sternly resolvetl to beas critical as Croker. But as we read on we forgot both commenda-tions ant1 criticism, ldentlfied ourselves wit11 Jane In all her troubles,and finally married Mr. Rochester about four in the morning."" Thequestlon is how and why did tlie crltic identify himself with Jane?

In order to understand thls 'experience,' It is well worth conslder-Ing Georges Poulet's observations on the reading process. He saysthat books only take on thelr full existence in the readere2' t Is truethat t ~ ~ ~ ~ o n s l s t ^ d ~ ~ ~ u ~ ~ ~ b j ~ ~ ~n readlngthe reader becomes tile subject that does the thlnklng. Thus theredisappears the subject-objectdivlslon that otherwise Is a prerequisitefor all knowledge and ail observation,and the removal of thls divisionputs reading in an apparently unique position as regards the possibleabsorption of new experiences. This may well be the reason whyrelations wlth the world of the literary text have so often beenmisinterpreted as Identification. From the Idea that In reading wemust think the thoughts of someone else, Poulet draws the followingconclusion: "Whatever 1 think is a part of my mental world, And yethere 1 am thlnklng a thought wllich manifestly belongs to anothermental world, which is being thought in me just as though 1 dld notexist. Already the notloti is Inconceivable and seems even more so if 1reflect that, since every thought must have a subject to cl~lnk t 1111st l ~ o r i g l ~ thich is alien to me and yet in me, rnust also have in me a21. Wllllam George Clark. Fraser s I)cceml)er, 1849): 692, quored by IcirhlecnTlllo~~ono~wLro rhe Eigbrertr.Forties Oxford, 1961, pp. 19 f25. CT. G e o r ~ e sPoulet, "Phenomenology or Readlog." Nrru Litemry Ifistory I1969):54.


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--

f i t whlch Is alien to me. . . .Whenever 1 read, 1 mentallynounce an I,nd yet the Iwhlch Ipronounce Is not myself. 26~ u tor Poulet this idea IS only part of the story. l'l ie strange sublect

that thlnks tl ie strange thought i n tlie reader Indicates tlie potent nlpresence of the author, whose ideas can be 'Internalized' by thereader: Such is the characterlstlc condition of every work whicli Isummon back In to exlstence by plac lng my corisclousness at Itsdisposal. 1 give It not only exlstence, but awareness of exlstence.Thls would mean tliat consclousness forms the polnt at whlch autllorand reader converge, and at tlie same time it woulcl result In th ecessation of the temporary self-allenation that occurs to tlie readerwhen hls consclousness I~rl ngso l lfe the Ideas formulated Ily tlieauthor. This process gives rise to n form of comtnonlcatlori whicli,Iiowever, according to Poulet, Is tlependcnt on two condltlons: theIlfe-story of tlie autllor nillst be sliut out of tl ie work ant1 tlrelndlvidual dlspositlon of tlie reader must he shut out of ihe act ofreading. Only then can the tliou~litsof tli e author take placesubJectively n tlie reader, wli o thinks whnt Ile Is not. I t follows thatthe work ltselfr~iust e thought of ns a consclousness, because only Inthls way Is there an adequate basls for tlie author-reader relationship-a relatlonship that can only come about through the negatlorl oftlie author's own llfestory and the reader's own dlsposltlon. Thlsconclusion is actually drawn by Poulet when lie describes tlie work asthe ~el~presentatlonr maierlallzatlon of consclousness: And soought no1 o hesitate to recognize that so long as It Is animatedby t lilsvltal lnbreathlng lnsplred by the act of r'eadlng, a work of literaturebecomes (at the expense of the reader whose own ll fe It suspends) asort of human being, that It Is a min d consclous of Itself andconstltutlng l tself In me as the subject of its own object^. ^ Eventhough It Is difficult to follow such a substantlalist conceptlon of theconsclousness that constitutes itself In tlie literary work, there are,nevertheless, certaln polnts In Poulet's argument that are wortliholdlng onto. But they should be developed along somewhat dllTer.ent lines.

I f reading removes the subject-object dlvision that constitutes allperception, It follows that tlie reader wlll be 'occupied' by the26. Ibld.,p. 56.27. Ibld.,p. 59.28. Ibld.

The R cn d i l l ~Process: A Plrnonlennlo~kalApproach 455

tliouglits of the author, and these In heir turn wl ll cause the drawlngof new 'boundaries.' Text aricl reader no longer confront each other asobject ant1 subject, bttt Instead tlie 'dlvlslon' takes place wlthln thereader hiniself. In lil nkl ~iglie thoughts of another, his own Indlvldu.ality teniporarlly recedes into tlie background, slnce i t is supplantedby these alle ll tlio tlglits, w lil cli now hecome the theme on whlch 111sattention i s focussed. As we read, there occurs an artif icial division ofour personnllty, because we take as a theme for ourselves somethingthat we are not. Consequently when readlng we operate on differentlevels. For although we may he tli lnk lng t lie thoughts of someone)'else, wliat we are wll l not disappear. completely-It wl ll merelyrrninln n more or less powcrfrtl vlrtrtal 'force. l'llus, In readlng tliereare Ilicse two lcavcls-~glIc~~mcI-nn l~erea~\~irlu~tLI~e -whlchL -=-k ' -..- .-.arc ncvcr co~nl,letcly cut olT from eecll otlle r. lntlccd, we can onlynlnkc sorneone else's tliotrgl its Into an n1)sorhlng theme for ourselves,~xovldetllie vlrtt~nl ~:rckgrorrncl f our own personallty can adapt toi t. Every text we rend tlrnws a dl kr en t horrndary wlthln our personall.ly, so tIi:rt tlie virtual I>nckgroun(l (t l~ e eal 'me') wil l take on atlini.rcrit form, accortling to thc theme of the tcxt concerned. Thls IsInevltal,le, I( only for thc fnct r I i : ~ t tlie relatlonslill ~ )ctwern alientlienie :111tl Is what riiekes Itirtual I~:~ ckgr otr~ itl possible for tlieurifamlllnr to be understood.

In liis context there Is a revealing remark mntle by I).W. Hardlng,argulng ngnlnst the ltlea of Itleritification wi th what Is rencl: What Issometimes called wish.fill fillnlent In novels and plays can . . . moreplnusll>ly be described ns wlsh.formulntlon or the tlefinition ofdesires. l'he cultural levels at w lilch It works mny vary wldely; theprocess Is the same:. . . I t secriis nenrer the truth . . . to say thatfictions contribute to defining tlie rentler's or spectnror's vnlues, andperhaps stlniu latl~ighls desires, rather tl ian to srlppose t1iat theygrntlfy deslre by some meclinnlsrn of vlcnrlot~s xl ie ri cn ~e . ~~n thenct of readlng, Iinvlng to think sonietli lng th;rt we have not yetexperienced does not nienn only 1,eing In a posit ion to conceive oreven untlerstand It: It also means ~ l i a tsuch actsof conception ;Irepossll,le and successfrrl to tli e degree tlint thcy 1e:ltl to sometlilngbeing formulated In us. R,r someone else's tlioi rgll ts can only take aform in our consciousness If, In the process, our unformulated factrltyfor declplierlng those thouglits Is broit glil Into plity-a faculty which,29. 11W I l a rc l l n~ ,Psyclloln~lcalrocesses In I l l e R e a c l l n ~ f Flcrltrn, In A(~rhur1cs

111the Afode~rr~lbrkd, ell. Il2rolcl Oshornr (I.ondon, 196H),11) I3 T


13/13

Q :blfgang lser

act of deciphering, also formulates itself. Now slnce this.ion is carrled out on terms set by someone else, whoseare the theme of our reading, It follows that the formulation. aculty for deciphering cannot be along our own Ilnes oforlentatlon.llereln lies the (1lalectical structure of reading. The need todeclpller glves us the chance to forlnulate our own declpherlngcapacity-i.e., we brlng to the fore an element of our being of whlchwe are not dlrectly conscious. The production of the meaning ofliterary texts-which we discussed In connection with formlng thegestalt of the text-does not merely entali the discovery of theunformulated, which can then be taken over by the active imaginationof the reader; t also entalls the possibility that we may formulateourselves and so dlscover what had previously seemed to elude ourconsclousness. These are the ways In which readll~g iterature glvesus the chance to formulate the unformulated.

ST NLEY FISHI1 Is lemplln g l o compare Stanley Fish's current poslllon in lllerarycrlllclsm wllh lh al o l Rlcherd Rorly's In philosophy.* Rorly Is lrylng lo dowhal he says Willgen sleln and Heldegger dld-lo work oul honorableterms on whlch phllosophy mlghl surrender lo poetry (1 1). This wouldmean glvlng up the correspondence lheory 01 language for a sell.expresslon theory. The corresponden ce lheory Is poslllvlstic and leleo-logical and assumes Iha l every succeeding generellon s gallln g closer lollndlng a way of expressing tiulh, lo whlch language more or lessedequalely corresponds. It Is lhls search for lrulh. Iha lradllionalobsession 01 phllosophy, lha l Rorly says we mus l abandon now. lml eado l a reallty out Ihere. each new phllosophy expreeses Jusl one morehuman project, jusl one more sel of melephors, . . .one more redes.crlpllon of lhlngs l o be Rled alongside all the olhers (14). For demonslrallon we now subslllule dlalecllc; for correspondence we subslllulecoherence: for discovery we eubslllule self.creallon, Whether our lan-guage corresponds to anylhlng ou l there Is rrelevanl now. Rorly quolesWllllam James' accounl ol hls own blindne ss when he discovered a slle InIhe Appalachians lhal had once b een vlrgln forest and was now a hideousmuddy ulcer wllh tree slumps, a log cabin, and a plgpen. To the people nIhe cabln, however, the elle was a profound personal vlclory, an occaslonfor prlde end the culllvallon of crops. James clalmed lo feel chasllsedwhen he und erstood lhls version of Ihlngs. Freud's work, lor Rorly, wasdeslgnad lo open us up lo slmilar examples of allernalive vlslons- prlvele poems of Ihe perverl, sedisl, end lunellc: as rlchly lexluredand 'redolent of m orel mamorles' as our own lile (14).

Fish's plea lor persuasionover demonslrellon In iterary crillclsrn seemslo parallel Rorly's su bslllullon of coh erence over correspondence. How-ever, where Flsh dlflers wll h Rorly Is In Ihe relellve humility of Iheparllcipenls: or lo put il another way. In Flsh'e double allllu de lowardlrulh. 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 Ifsomeone polnls out lo u s lha l we have held qulle dlf lerenl beliefs andlhal co nsequently we should be skepllcel ab oul the Rnallly of our currenlones, we are Incapable of such skepllclsm. One's perspecllve Is accessl-ble lo d w b l only when one no longer holds 11 Al lhal polnl one hokls anew posillon whlch can b e doubled by olhers bu l no1 by oneself. When

Richard Rorry. The C onring eng of L a n ~ u a ~ e . o ~ r d o nRer~lerro ooks I Aprll1986) 3-6; The C on l ln~ency f Sellhood. Lotfdotr Reuluw o Bookr(f3 May 198611-15.

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