Readers and Reading

Much literary criticism focuses on literary producers and their products, but an important part of such work considers the end-user, the reader. It asks such questions as: how far can the author condition the response of the reader, and how much does the reader create the meaning of a text? Dr Bennett's collection includes important essays from such writers and critics as Wolfgang Iser, Mary Jacobus, Roger Chartier, Michel de Certeau, Shoshana Felman, Maurice Blanchot, Paul de Man and Yves Bonnefoy. It looks in turn at deconstructionist, feminist, new historicist and psychoanalytical response to the school. The book then considers the act of reading itself, discussing such issues as the uniqueness of any reading and the difficulties involved in its analysis.

General Editor's Preface Acknowledgements Introduction 1. Wolfgang Iser, Interaction between Text and Reader 2. Vincent B Leitch, Reader-Response Criticism 3. Patrocincio P Schweickart, Reading Ourselves, Towards A Feminist Theory of Reading 4. Mary Jacobus, An Unnecessary Maze of Sign Reading 5. Wai-Chee Dimock, Feminism, New Historicism and the Reader 6. Roger Chartier, Labourers and Voyagers, From the Text to the Reader 7. Michel De Certeau, Reading as Poaching 8. Wayne Koestenbaum, Wild's Hard Labour and the Birth of Gay Reading 9. .Shoshana Felman, Renewing the Practice of Reading or Freud's Unprecedented Lesson 10. Maurice Blanchot, Reading 11. Paul de Man, The Resistance to Theory 12. J. Hillis Miller, Reading Unreadability, de Man 13. Yves Bonnefoy, Lifting our Eyes from the Page Key Concepts Notes on Authors Further Reading Index

Andrew Bennett is Professor of Literature at the University of Bristol, UK.