Wolfgang Iser

Iser examines what happens during the reading process, and how it is basic to the development of a theory of aesthetic response, setting in motion a chain of events that depends both on the text and the exercise of certain human faculties.

A Theory of Aesthetic Response

The Act of Reading

"When the present flurry of works on theory of narrative fiction comes to an end ... this seems likely to be one of the survivors."-Frank Kermode, Times Literary Supplement."Well-written, scholarly, perceptive... . A basic framework for a rational theory of literary effects and responses based on the novel."-Library Journal.

Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett

The Implied Reader

Dieter Henrich

Funktionen des Fiktiven

"An important transitional book, usefully summarizing the past and thoughtfully mapping out the future of a significant critic's theoretical project."- Modern Philology. "There is a much greater emphasis on the reader's function as 'performer' of the text in Prospecting than in Iser's other books. The two brilliant chapters on Beckett's fiction and drama are crucial here... Literature becomes 'play' and 'game,' and the reader becomes a performer of himself. This idea of performance becomes central to Iser's new theory. Art does not present life; it performs it."- Yearbook of English Studies.

From Reader Response to Literary Anthropology

Prospecting

Kommunikations formen des Romans von Bunyan bis Beckett

Der implizite Leser

Preface p. ix 1. Introduction p. 1 The Marketplace of Interpretation p. 1 Interpretation as Translatability p. 5 2. The Authority of the Canon p. 13 Canonization and Midrash p. 13 The Literary Canon: Dr. Johnson on Shakespeare p. 28 3. The Hermeneutic Circle p. 41 Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher: Self-Reflective Circularity p. 41 Johann Gustav Droysen: The Nesting of Circles p. 55 Paul Ricoeur: Transactional Loops p. 69 4. The Recursive Loop p. 83 Recursion in Ethnographic Discourse p. 83 Systemic Recursion p. 99 5. The Traveling Differential: Franz Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption p. 113 "The Birth of the Elements Out of the Somber Foundations of Nought" p. 113 Proliferating Translatability p. 134 6. Configurations of Interpretation: An Epilogue p. 145 Appendix p. 159 The Emergence of a Cross-Cultural Discourse: Thomas Carlyle's Sartor Resartus p. 159 Enfoldings in Paterian Discourse: Modes of Translatability p. 181 Index p. 201.

The Range of Interpretation

Describes the historical background of Sterne's novel, discusses its themes, and considers its philosophical aspects

Sterne: Tristram Shandy

Within this text, first published in German in 1960, the influential German literary scholar Wolfgang Iser writes engagingly of Pater's aesthetic.

The Aesthetic Moment

Walter Pater

This succinct introduction to modern theories of literature and the arts demonstrates how each theory is built and what it can accomplish. Represents a wide variety of theories, including phenomenological theory, hermeneutical theory, gestalt theory, reception theory, semiotic theory, Marxist theory, deconstruction, anthropological theory, and feminist theory. Uses classic literary texts, such as Keats’s Ode on a Grecian Urn, Spenser’s The Shephearde’s Calender and T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land to illustrate his explanations. Includes key statements by the major proponents of each theory. Presents the different theories objectively, allowing students to decide which if any, they subscribe to. Gives students a sense of the potential of theory. Includes a glossary of technical terms.

How to Do Theory

Henry Fielding und Der Englische Roman Des 18. Jahrhunderts

Klasické dílo známého kostnického profesora anglistiky a literární vědy ukazuje v historické i systematické perspektivě dvě klíčové kategorie zakládající literaturu. V pozadí stojí otázka, zda mají fiktivno a imaginárno charakter antropologických konstant, díky nimž lze získat náhled na základní lidskou potřebu představivosti. Iser chápe literaturu jako zrcadlo, jako nástroj lidského druhu k sebepřekračování a k poznávání světa. V této knize podává výklad svého pojetí literární antropologie, které přesahuje tradiční hranice kulturní či filosofické antropologie.

Perspektivy literární antropologie

Fiktivní a imaginární

The Anglia Book Series (ANGB) offers a selection of high quality work on all areas and aspects of English philology. It publishes book-length studies and essay collections on English language and linguistics, on English and American literature and culture from the Middle Ages to the present, on the new English literatures, as well as on general and comparative literary studies, including aspects of cultural and literary theory.

Die Weltanschauung Henry Fieldings

o teorie a efectului estetic

Actul lecturii

Kommunikationsformen des Romans von Bunyan bis Beckett

The pioneer of "literary anthropology," Wolfgang Iser presents a wide-ranging and comprehensive exploration of this new field in an attempt to explain the human need for the "particular form of make-believe" known as literature. Ranging from the Renaissance pastoral to Coleridge to Sartre and Beckett, The Fictive and the Imaginary is a distinguished work of scholarship from one of Europe's most respected and influential critics.

Wolfgang Iser

Books

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