Poststructural Analysis of the Role of Reader
Abstract
The paper discusses how post-structuralist theory deals with the concept of the reader’s aesthetic role in the process of reading literature. The relationship between authors, texts, and readers is regarded as the key-point of theoretical analysis among many relevant scholars and literary theorists (Umberto Eco, Wolfgang Iser, Jonathan Culler, Peter Rabinowitz, Stanley Fish), who have all contributed to our understanding of this topic by introducing fundamental concepts such as “the implied reader”, “the ideal reader”, “the informed reader” or “the authorial reader”. While formalism and structuralism have considered the reader to be an abstract, ahistorical figure, without any relevant share in the establishment of meaning in any given literary work, post-structuralism discusses the role of the reader in the act of reading not only as the crucial factor in the process of aesthetic experience but also as the essential condition for generating meaning as such.
References
But, V. (1976). Retorika fikcije. Beograd: Nolit.
Chatman, S. (1978). Story and Discourse. Narative Structure in Fiction and Film. New York: Cornell University Press.
Compagnon, A. (2007). Demon teorije. Zagreb: AGM.
Culler, J. (1988). Književna kompetencija. Republika, 9–10, 340–345.
Culler, J. (1991). O dekonstrukciji. Zagreb: Globus.
Culler, J. (2002). The Pursuit of Signs: Semiotics, Literature, Deconstruction. New York: Cornell University Press.
Eco, U. (1965). Otvoreno djelo. Sarajevo: Veselin Masleša.
Eco, U. (1988). Model čitatelja. Republika, 9/10, 92–105.
Eco, U. (2005). Šest šetnji pripovjednim šumama. Zagreb: Algoritam.
Fish, S. E. (1972). Self-Consuming Artifacts: The Experience of Seventeenth-Century Literature. Berkeley, Los Angeles i London: University of California Press.
Gadamer, H. G. (2002). Čitanka. Zagreb: Matica hrvatska.
Gibson, W. (1981). Authors, Speakers, Readers and Mock Readers. In: J. P. Tompkins (Ed.), Reader-Response Criticsm – From Formalism to Poststructuralism (3−6). Baltimore i London: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Iser, W. (1978). The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction. from Bunyan to Beckett. Baltimore i London: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Iser, W. (1995). Interaction Between Text and Reader. U: A. Bennet (Ed.), Readers on Reading (20−32). New York: Longman group Ltd.
Ong, W. J. (1975). The Writerʼs Audience Is Always a Fiction, PMLA 90, 1, 9–21.
Rabinowitz, P. J. (1998). Before Reading – Narrative Conventions and the Politics of Interpretation. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.
Rimmon-Kenan, S. (1989). Naracije: razine i glasovi. U: Z. Kramarić (ur.), Uvod u naratologiju (81−103). Osijek: IC Revija.
Sartr, Ž. P. (1981). Šta je književnost?. Beograd: Nolit.
Tompkins, J. P. (1981). The Reader in History: The Changing Shape of Literary Response. In: J. P. Tompkins (Ed.), Reader-Response Criticism – From Formalism to Poststructuralism (ix−xxv). Baltimore i London: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
The details about the publication policy, including copyright and licensing, are available at: