Why No One's Afraid of Wolfgang Iser

Abstract

At a time when we are warned daily against sirens literary theory, Wolfgang Iser is notable because he does not appear on anyone's list. He is not included among those (Derrida, de Man, Bloom, Miller, Fish) who are thought as subverting standards, values and rule common sense; nor do we find him cited as one those (Abrams, Hirsch, Booth, Graff, Crews, Shattuck) who are fighting good fight against forces deconstructive nihilism. His absence from field pitched battle does not mean that he goes unread; on contrary his two major works, The Implied Reader and The Act Reading outsell all other books on prestigious list Johns Hopkins Press with exception Grammatology (a book that is, I suspect, more purchased than read). Iser is, in short, a phenomenon: he is influential without being controversial, and at a moment when everyone is choosing up sides, he seems be on no side at all or (it amounts same thing) on every side at once. does he do it? (I might have asked, how does he get away with it?, but that would have been tip my hand.) The answer lies, I think, in terms in which he conceives his project which is no less than free literary text from demand that it yield or contain a referential meaning, an embodied truth. Such a demand, Iser complains, reduces literary texts to level documents [p. 13], and thus robs them of that very dimension that sets them apart from document, merely opportunity they offer us for ourselves spirit age, social conditions, author's neuroses, etc. [p. 13]. The emphasis here is on word experience for what is left out traditional or classical account is actualizing role played by reader in production-as opposed mere perception or uncovering-of literary meaning. How can meaning possibly be experienced if--as is always assumed by classical norm interpretationit is already there, namely waiting for a referential exposition? [p. 18]. Meaning in a literary text does not simply lie there, it must be brought out in an act concretization [p. 21]. It follows then that critic's should ... be not explain a work, but reveal conditions that bring about its various possible effects, effects that require participation a reader in whose the text comes life [p. 19]. As Iser sees it, advantage his theory is that it avoids identifying aesthetic object either with text, in its formal and objective self-

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