How do people interpret literary texts? Reader- response theorists David Bleich, Norman Holland, Stanley Fish and Wolfgang Iser have suggested different ways of conceptualising literary reading. This book examines how well their theories explain tendencies found in readers' responses to short fiction. A critical analysis of the theories reveals that they rely on problematic assumptions about language - assumptions that Ludwig Wittgenstein questioned in his late works. The empirical analysis gives rise to three main conclusions. 1) Readers tend to agree in their interpretations much more than the conventional idiosyncrasy thesis suggests. 2) Parties with opposing interpretations often pay attention to the same passages and acknowledge the possibility of an alternative interpretation. 3) Situations where memories of personal experiences seem to influence an interpretation are rare, and in such cases the memory has a strong emotional charge. This book offers teachers, students, researchers and literary enthusiasts reasons to re-examine common assumptions related to literary interpretation and to broaden their understanding of how readers make sense of texts.
Cecilia Therman, MA. PhD student at University of Helsinki, Finland. My current research examines readers' ability to infer authorial intentions, and the role that various types of memories have in literary interpretation. For more information, please visit
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