WEBVTT 00:01.630 --> 00:06.680 Prof: So before we go on to talk a little bit about the 00:06.678 --> 00:10.068 American historicist hermeneutical scholar 00:10.072 --> 00:13.302 E.D. Hirsch, and then Wolfgang Iser--for 00:13.300 --> 00:17.190 whom you have your reading assignment-- 00:17.190 --> 00:22.370 I want to go back to Gadamer a little bit and say something 00:22.374 --> 00:26.054 more about his taste, that is to say, 00:26.046 --> 00:31.236 the kind of literary and intellectual canon that his 00:31.238 --> 00:35.308 approach to hermeneutics establishes. 00:35.310 --> 00:39.810 You remember Gadamer is very much concerned with the norm of 00:39.811 --> 00:42.681 classicism, which later in his essay he is 00:42.680 --> 00:44.900 inclined to call "tradition" 00:44.900 --> 00:47.730 instead, and the reason that's so 00:47.726 --> 00:52.906 important to him is that he actually has a very conservative 00:52.906 --> 00:57.646 view of what the reader can accomplish in understanding 00:57.646 --> 00:59.486 another horizon. 00:59.490 --> 01:03.690 Gadamer, in other words, doesn't think that the reader 01:03.685 --> 01:08.345 can perform any great miracles in intuitively feeling his or 01:08.354 --> 01:12.554 her way into the mind of another time and place, 01:12.549 --> 01:17.479 so that the value of classicism and of tradition for Gadamer is 01:17.477 --> 01:21.847 that there is evident common ground in certain texts. 01:21.849 --> 01:24.659 Sometimes we refer to them as "great books"-- 01:24.659 --> 01:28.249 in other words, the sort of text that speaks, 01:28.250 --> 01:31.330 or we feel as though it's speaking, 01:31.330 --> 01:33.520 to all places and times. 01:33.519 --> 01:37.779 Of course, it's contested whether or not there is really 01:37.781 --> 01:41.191 any merit in talking about texts that way. 01:41.190 --> 01:45.760 But Gadamer's view is very strongly that this conservatism 01:45.757 --> 01:50.217 about the canon, which is intimately related to 01:50.215 --> 01:56.475 his conservative doubt about the actual capability of a reader to 01:56.479 --> 02:00.839 span enormous gaps-- and I use that word advisedly 02:00.838 --> 02:05.418 because it is the word that Iser uses to talk about the distance 02:05.421 --> 02:09.941 between the reader and the text, and the way in which that 02:09.938 --> 02:14.428 distance should be negotiated-- so in any case this 02:14.425 --> 02:17.775 conservatism, it seems to me, 02:17.780 --> 02:19.820 however, can be questioned. 02:19.818 --> 02:24.988 I thought that we'd begin then by turning to page 731, 02:24.990 --> 02:28.600 the left-hand column, the footnote. 02:28.598 --> 02:31.258 You're beginning to realize, I'm sure, that I like 02:31.258 --> 02:31.908 footnotes. 02:31.908 --> 02:36.358 Gibbon of course was said to have lived his life in his 02:36.360 --> 02:37.350 footnotes. 02:37.348 --> 02:41.558 Perhaps I live my life in the footnotes of other people. 02:41.560 --> 02:44.620 In any case, in this footnote Gadamer says 02:44.619 --> 02:47.309 something-- I think it's very rare that we 02:47.305 --> 02:50.675 can actually just sort of outright disagree with Gadamer, 02:50.680 --> 02:54.180 but he says something in this footnote that I believe we can 02:54.176 --> 02:55.656 actually disagree with. 02:55.660 --> 02:58.130 Toward the bottom of the footnote, 02:58.128 --> 03:00.818 731, left-hand column, he says, "… 03:00.817 --> 03:04.587 [J]ust as in conversation, we understand irony to the 03:04.594 --> 03:08.844 extent to which we are in agreement on the subject with 03:08.843 --> 03:10.893 the other person." 03:10.889 --> 03:14.999 We understand irony only, he means, to the extent to 03:15.000 --> 03:19.030 which we are in agreement with the other person. 03:19.030 --> 03:23.060 If you are expressing an opinion, in other words, 03:23.060 --> 03:25.550 which differs radically from my own, 03:25.550 --> 03:28.890 I can't understand, according to Gadamer, 03:28.889 --> 03:31.729 whether or not you're being ironic. 03:31.729 --> 03:34.549 This seems to me to be just patently false. 03:34.550 --> 03:37.060 Think about politics. 03:37.060 --> 03:39.870 Think about political talk shows. 03:39.870 --> 03:41.840 Think about political campaigns. 03:41.840 --> 03:46.490 When our political opponent is being ironic about our views we 03:46.491 --> 03:49.391 understand the irony perfectly well. 03:49.389 --> 03:51.829 We're used to it, we have accommodated ourselves 03:51.829 --> 03:54.319 to it, and of course it's the same in reverse. 03:54.318 --> 03:56.958 Our opponent understands our ironies, 03:56.960 --> 03:59.810 and there is, it seems to me, 03:59.812 --> 04:04.332 a perfect kind of symbiosis, ironically enough, 04:04.330 --> 04:08.640 between political opponents precisely maybe in the measure 04:08.639 --> 04:12.569 to which their ironies are mutually intelligible. 04:12.568 --> 04:16.078 It probably teaches each of them a good deal to be able to 04:16.084 --> 04:17.794 accommodate, to encounter, 04:17.793 --> 04:20.333 to get used to the ironies of the other, 04:20.329 --> 04:23.499 and I think this applies to conversation in general. 04:23.500 --> 04:27.440 It's very easy to pick up most forms of irony. 04:27.439 --> 04:31.109 We don't have an enormous difficulty grasping them, 04:31.110 --> 04:36.620 and it doesn't seem to me that our capability of grasping irony 04:36.620 --> 04:42.460 is founded on a necessary, underlying agreement. 04:42.459 --> 04:43.959 That's what he's saying. 04:43.959 --> 04:49.589 Now if this is the case, it seems to me that one has 04:49.589 --> 04:55.769 found a loophole in Gadamer's conservatism about what the 04:55.771 --> 04:57.761 reader can do. 04:57.759 --> 05:02.939 His premise is that in order to understand, there has to be a 05:02.937 --> 05:06.207 basis of agreement; but if what we've just said 05:06.211 --> 05:08.541 about understanding each other's ironies, 05:08.540 --> 05:11.720 even where there is pretty wholesale disagreement, 05:11.720 --> 05:17.470 is true, that ought to apply also to our capacity to read 05:17.468 --> 05:21.778 work with which we distinctly disagree, 05:21.778 --> 05:25.548 with which we feel we can never come to terms in terms of 05:25.550 --> 05:29.670 affirming its value, but which we nevertheless can 05:29.673 --> 05:30.743 understand. 05:30.740 --> 05:34.720 If understanding is not predicated on agreement, 05:34.720 --> 05:38.320 the possibility of opening up the canon, 05:38.319 --> 05:42.629 as we say, insisting that it doesn't have to be an absolutely 05:42.629 --> 05:47.139 continuous traditional canon, is available to us once again 05:47.139 --> 05:51.709 and Gadamer's conservatism on this issue can be questioned. 05:51.709 --> 05:55.899 Now it's not that Gadamer is insisting on absolute 05:55.898 --> 05:57.008 continuity. 05:57.009 --> 05:57.899 On the contrary. 05:57.899 --> 06:06.529 You'll probably remember that he says early in the essay that 06:06.531 --> 06:15.311 in order to recognize that we are in the presence of something 06:15.309 --> 06:23.509 that isn't merely within our own historical horizon, 06:23.509 --> 06:26.589 we need to be "pulled up short." 06:26.589 --> 06:29.489 In other words, to go back to that example once 06:29.485 --> 06:31.975 more, we need to recognize that 06:31.978 --> 06:36.668 there's something weird about that word "plastic," 06:36.673 --> 06:41.613 and in being pulled up short we recognize the need also for the 06:41.608 --> 06:46.298 fundamental act of reading in Gadamer which is the merger of 06:46.303 --> 06:50.883 horizons: in other words, that we are dealing knowingly 06:50.882 --> 06:54.322 with a horizon not altogether our own that has to be 06:54.319 --> 06:57.759 negotiated, that has to be merged with our 06:57.759 --> 07:00.839 own for understanding to be possible. 07:00.838 --> 07:04.208 In fact, Gadamer even insists that if we don't have this 07:04.208 --> 07:07.878 phenomenon of being pulled up short, our reading is basically 07:07.882 --> 07:09.172 just solipsistic. 07:09.170 --> 07:12.630 We just take it for granted that what we're reading is 07:12.629 --> 07:16.159 completely within our own horizon and we don't make any 07:16.156 --> 07:20.066 effort at all to understand that which is fundamentally or at 07:20.074 --> 07:22.364 least in some ways different. 07:22.360 --> 07:26.140 Gadamer acknowledges this, even insists on it as I say, 07:26.139 --> 07:32.269 but he doesn't lay stress on it because the gap that is implied 07:32.274 --> 07:37.524 in the need to be pulled up short is not a big one. 07:37.519 --> 07:40.929 That is to say, it's one that we can easily 07:40.927 --> 07:41.817 traverse. 07:41.819 --> 07:42.629 Take the example of "plastic" 07:42.625 --> 07:43.785 again: "Oh, gee, that's a strange 07:43.785 --> 07:45.255 word," we say, so we go to the OED [Oxford 07:45.255 --> 07:46.945 English Dictionary], we see it meant something 07:46.952 --> 07:48.832 different then, our problem is solved, 07:48.826 --> 07:49.686 and we continue. 07:49.690 --> 07:51.210 No big deal, right? 07:51.209 --> 07:55.209 But there may be ways of being pulled up short, 07:55.208 --> 07:59.988 occasions for being pulled up short, that Gadamer thinks 07:59.988 --> 08:03.898 exceed the imaginative grasp of a reader. 08:03.899 --> 08:08.199 As you'll see when we return to Iser after I've said a few 08:08.202 --> 08:11.582 things about Hirsch, this, as you'll see, 08:11.576 --> 08:16.156 is the fundamental difference between Gadamer and Iser. 08:16.160 --> 08:20.370 Where for Gadamer, the gap between reader and 08:20.365 --> 08:22.895 text, between my horizon and the 08:22.901 --> 08:26.321 horizon of the text, is perforce a small one, 08:26.317 --> 08:31.187 for Iser it needs to be a much larger one in order for what he 08:31.194 --> 08:34.314 calls the "act of the reader," 08:34.311 --> 08:39.001 the reading act, really to swing into high gear, 08:38.995 --> 08:44.185 and we'll see that this has implications for the obvious 08:44.187 --> 08:47.867 difference between their two canons. 08:47.870 --> 08:52.280 All right, but now I want to say something about the passage 08:52.284 --> 08:57.004 from which I quoted over against the passage from Gadamer at the 08:57.000 --> 08:59.320 end of the Gadamer lecture. 08:59.320 --> 09:04.440 You remember Gadamer said we have to be open to the otherness 09:04.438 --> 09:09.728 of the past in order that for us it may "speak true," 09:09.727 --> 09:14.077 but if we simply bracket out our own feelings, 09:14.080 --> 09:18.630 that can't possibly happen so that we have to recognize that 09:18.626 --> 09:23.326 in this mutuality of the reading experience we really are in a 09:23.328 --> 09:24.638 conversation. 09:24.639 --> 09:29.989 We're open to being told something true by someone else. 09:29.990 --> 09:32.580 Hirsch on the other hand says, "Oh, well, 09:32.581 --> 09:32.871 no. 09:32.870 --> 09:36.610 The important thing is to know the exact meaning of that other 09:36.605 --> 09:40.215 person because that's the only way to honor the otherness of 09:40.221 --> 09:41.141 the person. 09:41.139 --> 09:46.229 Kant says people ought to be an end and not a means for us; 09:46.230 --> 09:49.300 we ought to understand them on their terms." 09:49.298 --> 09:52.328 Gadamer's claim, however, was that if we do 09:52.332 --> 09:56.592 that, we are in fact suspending the way in which it might be 09:56.594 --> 09:58.404 that they speak true. 09:58.399 --> 10:02.439 We are honoring instead the integrity of what they're saying 10:02.437 --> 10:06.337 without thinking about whether or not it might be true. 10:06.340 --> 10:09.360 So I introduced Hirsch in that context, 10:09.360 --> 10:13.380 and now I want to go back to him a little bit and I want to 10:13.381 --> 10:17.681 work with two passages which I have sent you all in e-mail-form 10:17.682 --> 10:21.292 and which I have neglected to put on the board, 10:21.288 --> 10:24.948 but they're so short I don't think that will be necessary. 10:24.950 --> 10:31.880 The first of the two passages I want to talk about is Hirsch's 10:31.878 --> 10:38.688 argument that "meaning is an affair of consciousness and 10:38.692 --> 10:43.332 not of words"-- meaning is an affair of 10:43.331 --> 10:45.991 consciousness and not of words. 10:45.990 --> 10:49.380 In other words, the text is what makes the 10:49.384 --> 10:53.774 ascertainment of meaning possible and available to us, 10:53.772 --> 10:57.252 but meaning is not in the text. 10:57.250 --> 11:03.010 Meaning is in the intention of the author, and that is what we 11:03.014 --> 11:07.554 need to arrive at as we work through the text. 11:07.548 --> 11:10.898 Meaning is an affair of consciousness and not of words. 11:10.899 --> 11:11.879 Now think about this. 11:11.879 --> 11:16.529 What it means is that in understanding a text, 11:16.533 --> 11:21.293 we are attempting to grasp it in paraphrase. 11:21.288 --> 11:24.748 We are, in other words, attempting to grasp it in a 11:24.745 --> 11:27.715 sentence that might read something like, 11:27.720 --> 11:31.550 "What the author means to say is-- " 11:31.548 --> 11:32.228 Right? 11:32.230 --> 11:37.080 So that it's not what the text means--which might be anything, 11:37.082 --> 11:41.382 according to Hirsch, if you just appeal to the text; 11:41.379 --> 11:45.509 it's what the author means to say. 11:45.509 --> 11:46.339 Okay. 11:46.340 --> 11:47.830 So what's implied here? 11:47.830 --> 11:50.340 On the one hand, you could say this is just 11:50.342 --> 11:51.902 absolute total nonsense. 11:51.899 --> 11:55.229 We use a text to find meaning in something that we don't have 11:55.230 --> 11:56.230 available to us. 11:56.230 --> 12:00.130 Why don't we just find meaning in the text, which is available 12:00.128 --> 12:00.638 to us? 12:00.639 --> 12:02.579 That would make more sense. 12:02.580 --> 12:05.370 It's up to us to construe the text. 12:05.370 --> 12:10.010 We can't possibly know what the author meant except on the basis 12:10.005 --> 12:13.755 of our determination of the meaning of the text, 12:13.759 --> 12:17.449 so why not just focus our attention to meaning on the 12:17.452 --> 12:17.952 text? 12:17.950 --> 12:20.250 Hirsch was a student of Wimsatt. 12:20.250 --> 12:23.700 Hirsch was engaged in lifelong disagreement with Gadamer but he 12:23.701 --> 12:26.741 was a student of Wimsatt, the author of "The 12:26.740 --> 12:28.480 Intentional Fallacy." 12:28.480 --> 12:30.570 Obviously, Hirsch was a rebellious student 12:30.567 --> 12:31.787 > 12:31.788 --> 12:34.728 and insisted that, far from wanting to take 12:34.730 --> 12:37.860 Wimsatt's position, appealing to intention was the 12:37.859 --> 12:41.299 most important thing you can do, the only thing you can do which 12:41.298 --> 12:43.658 establishes-- according to the title of his 12:43.660 --> 12:46.010 first important book on hermeneutics-- 12:46.009 --> 12:48.589 "validity in interpretation." 12:48.590 --> 12:49.520 All right. 12:49.519 --> 12:57.819 It's very difficult intuitively to assent to Hirsch's position, 12:57.820 --> 13:00.590 and I'll just tell you by the way that I don't, 13:00.590 --> 13:05.480 I can't, but I will say in passing in defense of Hirsch 13:05.480 --> 13:08.740 that if we reflect on the matter, 13:08.740 --> 13:12.180 we realize that in common sense terms, 13:12.178 --> 13:16.438 appealing to an author's intention is precisely what we 13:16.440 --> 13:18.570 do for practical reasons. 13:18.570 --> 13:20.030 Let me give you an example. 13:20.029 --> 13:22.089 You're all students. 13:22.090 --> 13:26.880 You are sitting in classrooms that in many cases oblige you to 13:26.879 --> 13:27.899 take exams. 13:27.899 --> 13:31.799 Your instructor tells you when you write your exam, 13:31.801 --> 13:36.011 "Don't just parrot the words of the authors you're 13:36.014 --> 13:37.034 studying. 13:37.029 --> 13:42.009 I want to know that you understand those authors." 13:42.009 --> 13:43.259 Think about it. 13:43.259 --> 13:47.799 You prove to your teacher that you understand the authors by 13:47.801 --> 13:52.191 being able to put their meaning in other words-- 13:52.190 --> 13:55.080 in other words, to say the author is intending 13:55.076 --> 13:58.106 to say something, not just that the text says 13:58.110 --> 14:00.510 something and this is what it says, 14:00.509 --> 14:04.439 with your exam then being one long screed of quotation. 14:04.440 --> 14:09.930 Ironically, the instructor doesn't really want just 14:09.932 --> 14:12.462 quotation on an exam. 14:12.460 --> 14:15.810 He wants explanation, and the form of explanation is 14:15.813 --> 14:16.673 paraphrase. 14:16.668 --> 14:21.668 You can't have paraphrase unless you can identify a 14:21.668 --> 14:28.998 meaning which is interpersonal, a meaning which can be shared 14:29.004 --> 14:37.424 among a group that understands it and can be expressed in other 14:37.418 --> 14:38.638 words. 14:38.639 --> 14:39.679 That's the key. 14:39.678 --> 14:44.718 If you can put it in other words, those other words take 14:44.719 --> 14:48.109 the form of an appeal to intention. 14:48.110 --> 14:50.060 All right. 14:50.058 --> 14:54.828 That's an important argument in Hirsch's favor. 14:54.830 --> 14:57.570 We realize that practically speaking, 14:57.570 --> 15:02.860 the necessity of appealing to paraphrase in order to guarantee 15:02.855 --> 15:08.045 mutual understanding certainly does seem to be something like 15:08.053 --> 15:12.303 agreeing or admitting that meaning is an affair of 15:12.299 --> 15:15.859 consciousness, not of words--my consciousness, 15:15.855 --> 15:18.945 the author's consciousness, the consciousness that we can 15:18.951 --> 15:19.511 all share. 15:19.509 --> 15:24.219 That's where we find meaning, and meaning takes the form of 15:24.222 --> 15:28.532 that kind of paraphrase that everyone can agree on. 15:28.528 --> 15:37.308 So much then to the advantage or benefit of Hirsch. 15:37.308 --> 15:38.998 There are lots of things to be said against it, 15:39.000 --> 15:42.310 on the other hand, which I don't want to pause 15:42.308 --> 15:46.428 over now because I think a course of lectures on literary 15:46.427 --> 15:50.687 theory will inevitably show the ways in which paraphrase is 15:50.692 --> 15:54.812 inadequate to the task of rigorous interpretation. 15:54.808 --> 15:57.188 Cleanth Brooks, a New Critic, 15:57.186 --> 16:01.166 writes a famous essay called "The Heresy of 16:01.174 --> 16:05.164 Paraphrase," insisting that proper literary 16:05.163 --> 16:10.833 interpretation is a wooden, mechanical, inflexible exercise 16:10.825 --> 16:16.105 if it reduces the incredible complexity of a textual surface 16:16.106 --> 16:17.626 to paraphrase. 16:17.629 --> 16:22.319 So it's a complex issue, and I should leave it having 16:22.321 --> 16:26.111 said this much, at least for the moment. 16:26.110 --> 16:30.210 Now one other thing that Hirsch says, the other thing that I 16:30.211 --> 16:32.711 quoted, is in effect--I'll paraphrase 16:32.714 --> 16:34.874 now--> 16:34.870 --> 16:38.700 that what Gadamer omits to realize is that there is a 16:38.698 --> 16:42.678 difference between the meaning of a text and the 16:42.676 --> 16:45.176 significance of a text. 16:45.178 --> 16:48.148 That is Hirsch's other key position, 16:48.149 --> 16:52.349 and we can understand it by saying something like this: 16:52.346 --> 16:57.316 the meaning of a text is what the author intended it to mean-- 16:57.320 --> 16:59.870 that is to say, what we can establish with a 16:59.865 --> 17:01.165 reliable paraphrase. 17:01.168 --> 17:07.168 The significance of the text, which Hirsch does not deny 17:07.172 --> 17:09.872 interest to, is the meaning for 17:09.873 --> 17:13.533 us--that is to say, what we take to be important 17:13.526 --> 17:16.846 about this meaning: the way in which, 17:16.848 --> 17:19.068 for example, we can translate it into our 17:19.074 --> 17:23.614 own terms historically, we can adapt it to a cause or 17:23.605 --> 17:28.215 an intellectual position-- the ways, in other words, 17:28.221 --> 17:31.921 in which we can take the meaning of a text and make it 17:31.915 --> 17:33.445 significant for us. 17:33.450 --> 17:36.900 The difference between meaning and significance then is 17:36.895 --> 17:40.785 something that Hirsch takes very seriously and he insists-- 17:40.788 --> 17:42.578 and here is, of course, where it becomes 17:42.578 --> 17:44.908 controversial-- he insists that it's possible 17:44.905 --> 17:48.155 to tell the difference between meaning and significance if, 17:48.160 --> 17:53.010 good historicists that you are, you can pin down accurately and 17:53.008 --> 17:55.978 incontestably the author's meaning, 17:55.980 --> 17:59.720 appealing to all the philological tricks that you 17:59.724 --> 18:02.214 have, throwing out irrelevancies and 18:02.211 --> 18:05.441 insisting that you finally have the meaning right-- 18:05.440 --> 18:08.530 of course, how many times has that happened? 18:08.528 --> 18:11.638 which is obviously one point of disagreement with Hirsch. 18:11.640 --> 18:16.780 Then, once you've done that, once you have secured the 18:16.780 --> 18:21.630 integrity and accuracy of the meaning, Hirsch says, 18:21.632 --> 18:23.672 "Okay, fine. 18:23.670 --> 18:26.260 Now you can do anything you like with the text. 18:26.259 --> 18:30.329 You can adapt it for any sort of possible purpose, 18:30.328 --> 18:33.898 but the crucial thing is to keep the distinction between 18:33.898 --> 18:36.428 meaning and significance clear." 18:36.430 --> 18:42.510 Obviously, Gadamer refuses to argue that we can distinguish in 18:42.513 --> 18:44.513 that way reliably. 18:44.509 --> 18:49.239 We don't know--because it's a question of merging horizons, 18:49.240 --> 18:51.500 my horizon and the horizon of the text-- 18:51.500 --> 18:55.940 we don't know with any guarantee where meaning leaves 18:55.941 --> 19:00.921 off and significance begins, so that the splitting apart of 19:00.916 --> 19:05.726 the two terms is something that simply can't be accomplished by 19:05.726 --> 19:09.756 the way in which we enter the hermeneutic circle. 19:09.759 --> 19:14.579 That's Gadamer's position, and it is the position of 19:14.584 --> 19:19.884 anyone who opposes that of Hirsch, although what he means 19:19.881 --> 19:23.571 by the distinction is clear enough. 19:23.568 --> 19:25.248 "Yes, yes," you say, "I see exactly 19:25.247 --> 19:25.997 what he means." 19:26.000 --> 19:29.660 Nevertheless, to secure the distinction in 19:29.657 --> 19:33.047 actual practice, to say, "Okay. 19:33.048 --> 19:35.588 This is the meaning and now this is how I'm going to make it 19:35.586 --> 19:39.016 significant"-- well, it seems unlikely indeed 19:39.019 --> 19:43.489 that this is something anyone could ever accomplish. 19:43.490 --> 19:45.010 All right. 19:45.009 --> 19:51.169 Finally, to turn to Wolfgang Iser: Iser is concerned with 19:51.174 --> 19:55.474 what he calls the act of the reader-- 19:55.470 --> 19:59.350 Akt des Lesers is the title of one of his books-- 19:59.348 --> 20:04.918 and in so doing he establishes himself as a person very much in 20:04.915 --> 20:10.295 the tradition of phenomenology deriving from Husserl and more 20:10.303 --> 20:12.723 directly, in Iser's case, 20:12.721 --> 20:17.061 from an analyst of the way in which the reader moves from 20:17.058 --> 20:20.698 sentence to sentence in negotiating a text, 20:20.700 --> 20:25.310 a Polish intellectual named Roman Ingarden who is quoted 20:25.314 --> 20:28.674 frequently in the essay that you have. 20:28.670 --> 20:31.720 Those are the primary influences on Iser, 20:31.720 --> 20:35.530 but he himself has been tremendously influential in 20:35.532 --> 20:36.222 turn. 20:36.220 --> 20:41.800 Iser's interest in the reader's experience is part of a school 20:41.804 --> 20:47.024 of thought that he helped to found that grew up around the 20:47.021 --> 20:52.241 University of Konstanz in the sixties and seventies, 20:52.240 --> 20:56.740 and which resulted in a series of seminars on what was called 20:56.737 --> 21:00.857 "reception history" or alternatively "the 21:00.861 --> 21:03.411 aesthetics of reception." 21:03.410 --> 21:06.100 Iser's colleague was Hans Robert Jauss, 21:06.096 --> 21:09.346 whom we will be reading later in the course. 21:09.348 --> 21:13.758 The influence of the so-called Konstanz School spread to the 21:13.758 --> 21:17.418 United States and had many ramifications here, 21:17.420 --> 21:21.950 particularly and crucially in the early work of another critic 21:21.945 --> 21:26.245 we'll be turning to later in the semester, Stanley Fish. 21:26.250 --> 21:31.330 So reception history has been a kind of partly theoretical, 21:31.328 --> 21:35.098 partly scholarly field, one that's really still 21:35.104 --> 21:39.704 flourishing and has been ever since the early work in the 21:39.699 --> 21:44.129 great Konstanz seminars of Iser, Jauss and others. 21:44.130 --> 21:47.500 Iser, later in his career--he died just a couple of years 21:47.498 --> 21:49.768 ago-- taught annually at the 21:49.771 --> 21:54.491 University of California, Irvine, and by that time he was 21:54.487 --> 21:58.947 very much engaged in a new aspect of his project, 21:58.950 --> 22:02.350 which he called the anthropology of fiction-- 22:02.348 --> 22:04.828 that is to say, "Why do we have fiction? 22:04.828 --> 22:07.548 Why do we tell stories to each other?" 22:07.548 --> 22:12.668 All of Iser's work is grounded in the notion of literature as 22:12.674 --> 22:13.534 fiction. 22:13.528 --> 22:16.768 He's almost exclusively a scholar of the novel-- 22:16.769 --> 22:19.329 and by the way, one of the first obvious 22:19.327 --> 22:23.127 differences you can notice between Iser and Gadamer is that 22:23.132 --> 22:26.352 whereas Gadamer is an intellectual historian whose 22:26.346 --> 22:29.426 canonical texts are works of philosophy, 22:29.430 --> 22:34.390 works of social thought as well as great works of literature, 22:34.390 --> 22:37.200 for Iser it's a completely different canon. 22:37.200 --> 22:40.830 He is exclusively concerned with fiction and how we read 22:40.825 --> 22:43.335 fiction, how we come to understand 22:43.342 --> 22:47.142 fiction, and how we determine the meaning of a work of 22:47.141 --> 22:47.931 fiction. 22:47.930 --> 22:51.560 As I say, in the last phase of his career when he started 22:51.564 --> 22:54.554 thinking about the anthropology of fiction, 22:54.548 --> 22:57.768 he raised the even more fundamental question-- 22:57.769 --> 23:00.749 I think a very important one, though not necessarily to be 23:00.748 --> 23:04.568 aimed exclusively at fiction-- the anthropological question of 23:04.574 --> 23:08.614 why we have fiction at all, why it has been a persisting 23:08.605 --> 23:12.635 trans-historical phenomenon of human culture that we tell 23:12.636 --> 23:16.956 stories to each other, that we make things up when 23:16.957 --> 23:21.397 after all we could be spending all of our time, 23:21.400 --> 23:25.080 well, just talking about things that actually are around us. 23:25.078 --> 23:28.098 In other words, how is it that we feel the need 23:28.104 --> 23:29.424 to make things up? 23:29.420 --> 23:30.320 All right. 23:30.318 --> 23:35.598 Now as you read Iser you'll see immediately that in tone, 23:35.598 --> 23:38.748 in his sense of what's important, and in his 23:38.750 --> 23:43.000 understanding of the way in which we negotiate the world of 23:43.000 --> 23:47.470 texts he much more closely resembles Gadamer than Hirsch. 23:47.470 --> 23:50.290 We can say this in two different ways. 23:50.288 --> 23:56.048 We can say that Iser's position is a reconstruction of what 23:56.047 --> 24:01.107 Gadamer has, essentially, to say about the merger of 24:01.108 --> 24:02.398 horizons. 24:02.400 --> 24:04.340 For example, on page 1002, 24:04.335 --> 24:08.665 the bottom of the left-hand column over to the right-hand 24:08.670 --> 24:12.780 column, he says, "The convergence 24:12.778 --> 24:17.678 of text and reader"-- Gadamer's way of putting that 24:17.684 --> 24:20.934 would be the merger of the reader's horizon, 24:20.930 --> 24:28.880 my horizon, with the horizon within which the text appears-- 24:28.880 --> 24:32.630 "brings the literary work into existence." 24:32.630 --> 24:34.540 This is implied in Gadamer as well. 24:34.539 --> 24:38.309 It's not your horizon; it's not my horizon; 24:38.308 --> 24:41.988 it's that effective history which takes place when our 24:41.989 --> 24:43.169 horizons merge. 24:43.170 --> 24:47.150 That is the locus of meaning for Gadamer. 24:47.150 --> 24:51.040 By the same token, what Iser is saying is that the 24:51.039 --> 24:55.089 space of meaning is "virtual"--this is the 24:55.089 --> 24:56.439 word he uses. 24:56.440 --> 25:01.510 It's neither in the text nor in the reader but the result of the 25:01.509 --> 25:06.499 negotiation back and forth between the text and the reader, 25:06.500 --> 25:10.200 he says, that sort of brings the literary work into existence 25:10.195 --> 25:11.485 in a virtual space. 25:11.490 --> 25:14.120 "… [A]nd this convergence can 25:14.119 --> 25:18.609 never be precisely pinpointed, but must always remain virtual, 25:18.607 --> 25:22.797 as is not to be identified either with the reality of the 25:22.797 --> 25:27.507 text or with the individual disposition of the reader." 25:27.509 --> 25:29.549 So you see this is Gadamerian. 25:29.548 --> 25:32.588 This is the result, this is the fruit, 25:32.594 --> 25:37.614 of the hermeneutic engagement between horizons that results in 25:37.612 --> 25:38.602 meaning. 25:38.598 --> 25:43.128 It's put in a different way by Iser, but it is in a large 25:43.128 --> 25:44.988 degree the same idea. 25:44.990 --> 25:49.720 He also plainly shares with Gadamer the assumption, 25:49.720 --> 25:53.980 the supposition, that the construal of meaning 25:53.978 --> 25:57.288 cannot be altogether objective. 25:57.288 --> 26:01.428 In other words, Iser is no more an historicist 26:01.432 --> 26:06.862 than Gadamer is but insists rather on the mutual exchange of 26:06.864 --> 26:11.564 prejudice between the two horizons in question. 26:11.558 --> 26:17.548 So he argues on page 1005, the right-hand column: 26:17.548 --> 26:20.828 One text [this halfway down the column] 26:20.829 --> 26:26.009 is potentially capable of several different realizations, 26:26.009 --> 26:30.749 and no reading can ever exhaust the full potentia, 26:30.750 --> 26:36.460 for each individual reader will fill in the gaps in his own way. 26:36.460 --> 26:40.900 This of course brings us to the issue of "gaps" 26:40.904 --> 26:45.354 and the role that they play in the act of reading as Iser 26:45.351 --> 26:46.861 understands it. 26:46.859 --> 26:49.689 It's an interesting term. 26:49.690 --> 26:53.200 I don't actually know whether Iser, to be Hirschian, 26:53.195 --> 26:55.735 means > 26:55.740 --> 26:58.630 what I'm about to say about gaps, but plainly a 26:58.634 --> 27:00.344 "gap" is an abyss, 27:00.335 --> 27:02.785 it's a distance between two points; 27:02.788 --> 27:06.978 but what's really interesting is that we think of spark 27:06.980 --> 27:10.240 plugs--we think of gapping a spark plug. 27:10.240 --> 27:12.470 I don't know if you know how a spark plug works, 27:12.470 --> 27:18.180 but for the electrical current to fly into operation in a spark 27:18.182 --> 27:21.482 plug, the two points of contact have 27:21.476 --> 27:22.666 to be gapped. 27:22.670 --> 27:26.370 They have to be forced apart to a certain degree. 27:26.369 --> 27:28.009 Too much, there's no spark. 27:28.009 --> 27:31.289 Too little, you short out. 27:31.289 --> 27:31.829 Right? 27:31.829 --> 27:32.889 There's no spark. 27:32.890 --> 27:37.170 So you have to gap a spark plug, and it seems to me that 27:37.172 --> 27:40.522 the "ah-ha" effect of reading, 27:40.519 --> 27:44.999 the movement back and forth across the gap between the 27:44.997 --> 27:49.177 reader and the text, can be understood in terms of a 27:49.181 --> 27:51.011 spark, right, as though the 27:51.007 --> 27:54.247 relationship between the reader and the text were the 27:54.250 --> 27:57.680 relationship between the two points of a spark plug. 27:57.680 --> 28:01.560 Whether Gadamer means that when he speaks of gap or whether he 28:01.560 --> 28:04.620 simply means an abyss or a distance to be crossed 28:04.615 --> 28:06.265 > 28:06.269 --> 28:10.019 I couldn't say. 28:10.019 --> 28:13.889 Much like the opportunities in the word "plastic," 28:13.894 --> 28:17.704 I think it's useful to suggest that this sense of gapping a 28:17.702 --> 28:21.252 spark plug may have some relevance to our understanding 28:21.249 --> 28:24.269 of what goes on in this reading process. 28:24.269 --> 28:31.399 Now how then does he differ from Gadamer? 28:31.400 --> 28:34.700 One way that is I think not terribly important but I think 28:34.698 --> 28:38.058 is interesting in view of what we've just been saying about 28:38.055 --> 28:41.405 Hirsch and another way that's absolutely crucial that we've 28:41.412 --> 28:44.482 implied already and to which we need to return. 28:44.480 --> 28:48.550 The way that's perhaps not terribly important at least for 28:48.550 --> 28:51.630 present purposes-- although this is a distinction 28:51.631 --> 28:54.711 that's going to be coming up again and again later in the 28:54.713 --> 28:58.183 semester-- is the way in which he actually 28:58.184 --> 29:08.974 seems to distinguish-- this is page 1006 in the upper 29:08.971 --> 29:16.591 left-hand column-- between "reading" 29:16.586 --> 29:19.046 and "interpretation." 29:19.048 --> 29:21.278 This is at the very top of the left-hand column. 29:21.278 --> 29:24.098 He says: "… [T]he text refers back directly 29:24.096 --> 29:27.616 to our own preconceptions-- "--Gadamer would call 29:27.621 --> 29:32.201 those "prejudices"-- "which are revealed by the 29:32.201 --> 29:36.351 act of interpretation that is a basic element of the reading 29:36.353 --> 29:37.553 process." 29:37.548 --> 29:41.408 So there's a wedge there between the concept of reading 29:41.406 --> 29:43.976 and the concept of interpretation. 29:43.980 --> 29:48.790 I would suggest that it's not unlike the wedge that Hirsch 29:48.787 --> 29:53.427 drives between the concept of meaning and the concept of 29:53.425 --> 29:54.855 significance. 29:54.858 --> 29:57.408 In other words, meaning is construal. 29:57.410 --> 30:01.760 Significance is the application of that construal to something. 30:01.759 --> 30:05.759 I think that the distinction Iser is making between reading 30:05.756 --> 30:09.886 and interpretation can be understood in much the same way. 30:09.890 --> 30:13.150 Iser doesn't make much of the distinction. 30:13.150 --> 30:15.910 In other words, it's not an important part of 30:15.906 --> 30:18.476 his argument, which is why I say that the 30:18.483 --> 30:22.113 difference with Gadamer-- who never makes the distinction 30:22.105 --> 30:24.615 between reading and interpretation-- 30:24.618 --> 30:28.448 in this matter is slight, but the other difference is 30:28.452 --> 30:32.162 very important, and that is--to return to this 30:32.155 --> 30:36.165 point-- that Iser stresses innovation 30:36.167 --> 30:42.337 as the principle of value governing the choice and the 30:42.343 --> 30:46.773 interpretive strategies of reading. 30:46.769 --> 30:51.859 Innovation is what Iser's canon is looking for. 30:51.858 --> 30:55.098 That's what makes it so different from Gadamer's 30:55.103 --> 30:58.143 conservative continuous traditional canon. 30:58.140 --> 31:03.810 Iser's understanding of gapping the spark plug is a much more 31:03.805 --> 31:08.335 bold affirmative of the imaginative powers of the 31:08.336 --> 31:12.336 reader, a much more bold process than 31:12.335 --> 31:17.865 the hesitant conservative process suggested by Gadamer. 31:17.868 --> 31:23.048 Now in order to illustrate the way in which what Iser calls 31:23.049 --> 31:28.499 virtual work gets done in this regard, let me just run through 31:28.498 --> 31:30.908 a few passages quickly. 31:30.910 --> 31:33.640 If Gadamer says, in a way, that he doesn't 31:33.643 --> 31:37.713 really stress in the long run that in order to know that there 31:37.711 --> 31:41.711 is actually a difference between the reader's horizon and the 31:41.711 --> 31:45.851 horizon of the text you need to be "pulled up short," 31:45.846 --> 31:48.576 something needs to surprise you-- 31:48.578 --> 31:52.918 well, Iser throws his whole emphasis on this element of 31:52.923 --> 31:53.813 surprise. 31:53.808 --> 31:56.608 If it doesn't surprise, it isn't worth it; 31:56.609 --> 31:57.909 it doesn't have value. 31:57.910 --> 32:03.560 And we'll talk in more detail about the ways in which it 32:03.558 --> 32:06.948 doesn't have value in a minute. 32:06.950 --> 32:10.780 If the element of surprise is to become absolutely central and 32:10.778 --> 32:13.978 paramount in the reading process, the gap has to get 32:13.979 --> 32:14.669 bigger. 32:14.670 --> 32:15.810 > 32:15.808 --> 32:19.898 It has to be a bigger distance, a broader abyss, 32:19.900 --> 32:25.210 and that's what Iser is working with in the passages I'm about 32:25.208 --> 32:26.338 to quote. 32:26.338 --> 32:28.978 As I say, I'm going to quote three, more or less rapid-fire. 32:28.980 --> 32:33.590 The first is on page 1003, the upper left-hand column: 32:33.586 --> 32:37.496 "In this process of creativity"-- 32:37.500 --> 32:42.610 that is to say, the way in which a text induces 32:42.612 --> 32:47.172 the feeling of surprise in the reader-- 32:47.170 --> 32:52.010 "the text may either not go far enough, 32:52.009 --> 32:55.999 or may go too far…" Now I admit in this particular 32:56.002 --> 32:59.072 passage you get a hint of Gadamer's element of 32:59.068 --> 33:00.158 conservatism. 33:00.160 --> 33:02.050 The text may go too far. 33:02.048 --> 33:04.698 In other words, it may make demands on us that 33:04.698 --> 33:05.638 are too great. 33:05.640 --> 33:06.840 For example, we're reading Finnegan's 33:06.835 --> 33:07.045 Wake. 33:07.049 --> 33:08.409 We haven't got a clue. 33:08.410 --> 33:10.670 The text has gone too far. 33:10.670 --> 33:13.070 We can't get from sentence to sentence, 33:13.068 --> 33:16.178 and even within the sentence we have no idea what the words 33:16.180 --> 33:19.160 mean, so we're lost at sea unless, 33:19.163 --> 33:21.863 of course, we really rise to meet the 33:21.855 --> 33:23.655 challenge; but typically or 33:23.660 --> 33:27.900 characteristically in Iser's terms the text has gone too far: 33:27.901 --> 33:30.801 "… [S]o we may say"-- 33:30.798 --> 33:35.918 he elaborates here'--"that boredom and overstrain form the 33:35.921 --> 33:40.631 boundaries beyond which the reader will leave the field of 33:40.630 --> 33:41.870 play." 33:41.868 --> 33:44.348 In other words, if there are no surprises, 33:44.349 --> 33:45.499 it's just a yawn. 33:45.500 --> 33:47.310 Why bother to read at all? 33:47.308 --> 33:52.078 If the surprises are too great, then they induce overstrain and 33:52.078 --> 33:56.078 we throw away the book in frustration and despair. 33:56.078 --> 34:01.958 So the distance of the gap needs to be between the outer 34:01.961 --> 34:07.631 limits of boredom and overstrain according to Iser. 34:07.630 --> 34:12.230 Continuing to page 1004, the upper right-hand column: 34:12.230 --> 34:15.680 "… [E]xpectations"-- 34:15.679 --> 34:20.459 this word is what Iser thinks governs the sort of dialectic 34:20.463 --> 34:24.013 that the reading process is playing with. 34:24.010 --> 34:27.110 Reading consists, according to Iser, 34:27.105 --> 34:30.195 in the violation of expectations. 34:30.199 --> 34:34.639 For the violation to work the expectations have to be there.So 34:34.637 --> 34:37.657 that's the dialectic; that's what's negotiated. 34:37.659 --> 34:40.759 There has to be a sense, moving from sentence to 34:40.760 --> 34:44.190 sentence, that something is likely to happen next. 34:44.190 --> 34:46.920 If that underlying sense isn't there, 34:46.920 --> 34:50.240 then whatever happens is simply met with frustration, 34:50.239 --> 34:53.559 but if we have the expectation that something's going to happen 34:53.561 --> 34:55.661 next, and then something different 34:55.661 --> 34:59.581 happens, or if the suspense of wondering 34:59.579 --> 35:06.329 what will happen next is in play so that anything can happen-- 35:06.329 --> 35:10.199 but the experience of suspense has been gone through, 35:10.199 --> 35:12.989 then in those cases that's all to the good; 35:12.989 --> 35:15.769 that's a good part of the reading process. 35:15.768 --> 35:17.698 "… [E]xpectations," 35:17.695 --> 35:20.035 says Iser, "are scarcely ever 35:20.036 --> 35:23.006 fulfilled in a truly literary text." 35:23.010 --> 35:28.570 You see, that's where the evaluative principle that 35:28.572 --> 35:34.472 completely revolutionizes Gadamer's canon comes in. 35:34.469 --> 35:37.949 In other words, innovation, the principle of 35:37.949 --> 35:40.389 change, the principle of violated 35:40.387 --> 35:44.607 expectation, is what imposes or establishes 35:44.610 --> 35:49.180 value in the literary text-- not continuity, 35:49.177 --> 35:54.377 not a sense that across the abyss truth is being spoken to 35:54.380 --> 35:56.970 us, but rather the sense that 35:56.972 --> 36:01.352 across the abyss we are being constructively surprised. 36:01.349 --> 36:02.069 Right? 36:02.070 --> 36:07.290 That's what has changed between these two positions. 36:07.289 --> 36:11.229 "We implicitly demand of expository texts," 36:11.228 --> 36:14.188 he goes on to say-- and he may be alluding to 36:14.192 --> 36:17.382 Gadamer here because after all Gadamer is talking primarily 36:17.376 --> 36:19.886 about expository texst, works of philosophy, 36:19.893 --> 36:22.323 works of social thought, which of course aren't trying 36:22.324 --> 36:23.564 to surprise > 36:23.557 --> 36:24.117 or trick us. 36:24.119 --> 36:27.819 They're trying to lay out an argument which is consistent and 36:27.822 --> 36:30.542 continuous and keep surprise to a minimum. 36:30.539 --> 36:33.099 It's difficult, philosophy and social thought, 36:33.097 --> 36:36.507 but it's not difficult because of the element of surprise. 36:36.510 --> 36:39.110 It's the vocabulary, it's the complexity of the 36:39.108 --> 36:41.648 thought, and so on that makes it difficult. 36:41.650 --> 36:44.630 Iser acknowledges this. 36:44.630 --> 36:48.260 He says, "… [W]e implicitly demand of 36:48.255 --> 36:52.105 expository texts… [that there be no surprise] 36:52.108 --> 36:56.488 as we refer to the objects they are meant to present-- 36:56.489 --> 36:58.899 [but it's] a defect in a literary 36:58.900 --> 36:59.880 text." 36:59.880 --> 37:05.140 That's the difference for Iser between nonfiction and fiction. 37:05.139 --> 37:10.529 With nonfiction, we don't want to be surprised. 37:10.530 --> 37:13.930 It poses other kinds of difficulty, let's say; 37:13.929 --> 37:17.249 but in the case of fiction, in order to be engaged, 37:17.250 --> 37:20.440 in order to enter the hermeneutic circle properly, 37:20.440 --> 37:24.180 we need the element of surprise, as I say, 37:24.179 --> 37:27.789 as a way of distinguishing between fiction and nonfiction. 37:27.789 --> 37:32.869 Let's turn to page 1010, the lower right-hand column. 37:32.869 --> 37:35.459 The word "defamiliarization" 37:35.460 --> 37:39.940 we will encounter soon when we take up the Russian Formalists. 37:39.940 --> 37:44.410 "Defamiliarization" means precisely pulling you up 37:44.407 --> 37:49.747 short or taking you by surprise, making you feel that what you 37:49.753 --> 37:55.233 thought was going to be the case or what you thought was the 37:55.231 --> 37:59.691 state of affairs is not the state of affairs. 37:59.690 --> 38:04.080 The poet Wallace Stevens puts it beautifully when he says that 38:04.081 --> 38:07.971 poetry should make the visible a little hard to see; 38:07.969 --> 38:13.379 in other words it should be a defamiliarizing of that which 38:13.376 --> 38:15.796 has become too familiar. 38:15.800 --> 38:18.620 That's an aspect of the reading process, 38:18.619 --> 38:21.879 and so Iser says: "This defamiliarization of 38:21.882 --> 38:25.762 what the reader thought he recognized is bound to create a 38:25.755 --> 38:29.695 tension that will intensify his expectations as well as his 38:29.697 --> 38:32.617 distrust of those expectations." 38:32.619 --> 38:35.549 In other words, the tension itself of 38:35.552 --> 38:39.632 simultaneously having expectations and feeling that 38:39.626 --> 38:43.776 they should be violated, that probably they will be 38:43.780 --> 38:46.080 violated, being on the alert for how 38:46.077 --> 38:49.817 they're going to be violated-- this is a kind of tension, 38:49.815 --> 38:53.625 a constructive tension which constitutes for Iser the 38:53.630 --> 38:56.490 psychological excitement of reading. 38:56.489 --> 38:57.559 All right. 38:57.559 --> 39:00.829 Having said all of this, obviously what Iser means to 39:00.827 --> 39:03.527 say is that the reader should work hard, 39:03.530 --> 39:09.020 that the virtual work done by the reader to constitute, 39:09.018 --> 39:14.138 to bring into existence, a virtual meaning should be 39:14.143 --> 39:17.283 hard work, and there's not much work to do 39:17.284 --> 39:19.834 if two things are the case: first of all, 39:19.829 --> 39:21.859 if the text just seems real. 39:21.860 --> 39:28.320 In other words, if there's no spin on reality, 39:28.320 --> 39:33.740 if there's no sense of this being a fictive world, 39:33.739 --> 39:38.849 if it just seems to be about the everyday, 39:38.849 --> 39:42.099 about life as we live it, the life that we find ourselves 39:42.101 --> 39:44.591 in-- then according to Iser, 39:44.590 --> 39:49.060 at least, there's no violation of expectations. 39:49.059 --> 39:50.709 The gap isn't big enough. 39:50.710 --> 39:52.960 This is, of course, disputable. 39:52.960 --> 39:57.460 There is a kind of a vogue recurrently in the history of 39:57.460 --> 40:02.620 fiction for a kind of miraculous sense that this is just exactly 40:02.617 --> 40:04.497 the way things are. 40:04.500 --> 40:07.840 People enjoy that in ways that Iser may not be fully 40:07.835 --> 40:11.775 acknowledging in this argument, but there's no question that it 40:11.784 --> 40:14.404 doesn't involve the violation of expectations. 40:14.400 --> 40:16.470 There's not much gap at all. 40:16.469 --> 40:20.829 It's another kind of pleasure that Iser is perhaps not taking 40:20.827 --> 40:24.967 into account that we take in that which seems to be simply 40:24.969 --> 40:27.729 incontestably real as we read it, 40:27.730 --> 40:30.680 and Iser leaves that out of account. 40:30.679 --> 40:34.599 On the other hand, he says that there is no use 40:34.597 --> 40:36.857 either, no value either, 40:36.858 --> 40:42.228 in that form of engagement with a text in which an illusion is 40:42.228 --> 40:44.428 perpetually sustained. 40:44.429 --> 40:46.739 In other words, an illusion is created; 40:46.739 --> 40:49.759 a never-never land is created. 40:49.760 --> 40:53.750 We know it's an illusion, but we get to live in it so 40:53.750 --> 40:58.120 comfortably with so little alteration of the nature of the 40:58.123 --> 41:03.423 illusion or of the way in which we negotiate the illusory world, 41:03.420 --> 41:06.550 that it becomes kind of womb-like and cozy. 41:06.550 --> 41:10.240 Here of course, Iser is referring to what he 41:10.242 --> 41:13.162 calls "culinary fiction," 41:13.161 --> 41:16.511 the sub-genres of literature like, 41:16.510 --> 41:18.680 well, nurse novels, bodice-rippers, 41:18.679 --> 41:23.109 certain kinds of detective fiction-- 41:23.110 --> 41:26.780 although a lot of detective fiction is much better than that 41:26.782 --> 41:29.462 description would imply: in other words, 41:29.460 --> 41:32.910 novels in which undoubtedly it's an illusory world. 41:32.909 --> 41:36.199 Things just don't happen the way they happen in nurse novels 41:36.195 --> 41:39.365 and bodice-rippers--in which somehow or another the pauper 41:39.369 --> 41:40.649 marries the prince. 41:40.650 --> 41:44.300 This doesn't happen, but at the same time it's a 41:44.300 --> 41:48.190 world of illusion in which the reader lives all too 41:48.186 --> 41:49.426 comfortably. 41:49.429 --> 41:50.069 Right? 41:50.070 --> 41:54.610 So these are forms of the experience of reading fiction of 41:54.614 --> 41:59.404 which Iser disapproves because there's no work being done. 41:59.400 --> 42:04.510 The virtual work of the reader does not involve surprise, 42:04.514 --> 42:08.994 does not involve the violation of expectations. 42:08.989 --> 42:13.519 The relationship between text and reader must be a 42:13.518 --> 42:16.198 collaboration, Iser argues. 42:16.199 --> 42:19.139 The poly-semantic nature of the text-- 42:19.139 --> 42:22.539 that is to say, the fact that the text sort of 42:22.536 --> 42:26.606 throws up all sorts of possibilities of meaning if it's 42:26.610 --> 42:29.630 a good text-- > 42:29.630 --> 42:34.490 and the illusion making of the reader are opposed factors. 42:34.489 --> 42:36.129 In other words, there is something in the 42:36.134 --> 42:38.444 reader that wants to settle comfortably into the world of 42:38.436 --> 42:40.416 the nurse novel, the bodice-ripper, 42:40.416 --> 42:43.896 the formulaic detective novel-- that wants just to sort of 42:43.904 --> 42:45.934 exist comfortably in those worlds; 42:45.929 --> 42:50.329 but a good text is perpetually bringing the reader up short and 42:50.331 --> 42:54.381 preventing that comfort zone from establishing itself, 42:54.380 --> 42:59.220 so that the tension between the tendency on our part to sustain 42:59.215 --> 43:04.045 an illusion and the way in which the text keeps undermining the 43:04.052 --> 43:08.972 illusion is again that aspect of the psychological excitement of 43:08.965 --> 43:12.705 reading that Iser wants to concentrate on. 43:12.710 --> 43:19.660 Now a word about Tony the Tow Truck in this regard. 43:19.659 --> 43:22.029 I brought the text with me. 43:22.030 --> 43:25.500 You can look at it now or at your leisure. 43:25.500 --> 43:30.550 I wanted to call attention to a few places in the text in which 43:30.545 --> 43:35.345 it is a question of expectation and of the way in which this 43:35.346 --> 43:37.946 expectation can be violated. 43:37.949 --> 43:41.159 Now it's only fair to say that if we're going to read Tony 43:41.164 --> 43:44.174 seriously in this way we have to put ourselves in the 43:44.166 --> 43:46.496 shoes of a toddler; that is to say, 43:46.503 --> 43:51.073 as readers or auditors we have to think of ourselves and of the 43:51.070 --> 43:55.410 psychological excitement of experiencing the text as that of 43:55.414 --> 43:56.524 a toddler. 43:56.518 --> 44:00.178 It's not so very difficult to do. 44:00.179 --> 44:03.329 For example: I am Tony the Tow Truck. 44:03.329 --> 44:05.019 I live in a little yellow garage. 44:05.019 --> 44:06.179 I help cars that are stuck. 44:06.179 --> 44:07.449 I tow them to my garage. 44:07.449 --> 44:08.509 I like my job. 44:08.510 --> 44:10.030 One day I am stuck. 44:10.030 --> 44:12.990 Who will help Tony the tow truck? 44:12.989 --> 44:14.129 All right. 44:14.130 --> 44:17.980 Now this is a wonderful example of the tension between having 44:17.981 --> 44:21.431 expectations, the expectation that someone 44:21.429 --> 44:25.229 will help Tony, and being in a state of 44:25.230 --> 44:29.080 suspense, not knowing who it will be. 44:29.079 --> 44:32.319 Now from the adult point of view, this is culinary because 44:32.315 --> 44:35.885 we know that we're in the world of folklore and that in folklore 44:35.891 --> 44:37.881 everything happens three times. 44:37.880 --> 44:41.120 We know that two vehicles are going to come along and not help 44:41.117 --> 44:43.237 Tony and that the third vehicle will, 44:43.239 --> 44:47.529 because everything, as I say, happens in threes in 44:47.534 --> 44:48.504 folklore. 44:48.500 --> 44:50.440 Notice Tony the Tow Truck < 44:51.222 consonants>> 44:51.219 --> 44:53.179 --next week when we read the Russian formalists, 44:53.179 --> 44:57.239 we will learn the research finding of one of the early 44:57.235 --> 45:01.595 formalists to the effect that "repetition in verse is 45:01.596 --> 45:05.036 analogous to tautology in folklore." 45:05.039 --> 45:06.649 We have exactly that > 45:06.650 --> 45:08.520 going on in Tony the Tow Truck, 45:08.518 --> 45:11.258 "t- t- t," and then the three events, 45:11.260 --> 45:13.430 Neato the Car, Speedy the Car, 45:13.432 --> 45:16.882 and Bumpy the Car coming along in sequence, 45:16.880 --> 45:19.030 with Bumpy finally resolving the problem. 45:19.030 --> 45:22.410 So in any case we have an expectation. 45:22.409 --> 45:26.689 We have the dialectic of suspense on the one hand, 45:26.690 --> 45:30.510 how will this be resolved, and inevitability on the other, 45:30.510 --> 45:32.100 "Oh, it's a folk tale, it'll be resolved, 45:32.097 --> 45:33.197 don't worry about it." 45:33.199 --> 45:37.899 We have this suspense, as I say, between expectation, 45:37.904 --> 45:42.884 the possibility of violation, and simply not knowing. 45:42.880 --> 45:44.130 Okay. 45:44.130 --> 45:46.980 Now we continue: "I cannot help you," 45:46.983 --> 45:47.723 says Neato the Car. 45:47.719 --> 45:48.969 "I don't want to get dirty"… 45:48.967 --> 45:50.467 "I cannot help you," says Speedy the Car. 45:50.469 --> 45:51.779 "I am too busy"… 45:51.775 --> 45:52.425 I am very sad. 45:52.429 --> 45:55.169 Then a little car pulls up. 45:55.170 --> 45:58.340 I think it's wonderful because it "pulls up" 45:58.340 --> 46:01.390 just like Gadamer being "pulled up short," 46:01.391 --> 46:03.431 and there is, it seems to me, 46:03.425 --> 46:07.045 there's another crisis of expectation in this line in that 46:07.054 --> 46:10.754 especially as a toddler I need to negotiate that expression 46:10.748 --> 46:11.958 idiomatically. 46:11.960 --> 46:13.540 I'm three years old. 46:13.539 --> 46:17.549 Maybe I don't know what "pulls up" 46:17.552 --> 46:18.302 means. 46:18.300 --> 46:21.860 It's probably not very good writing for a toddler precisely 46:21.862 --> 46:25.252 for that reason, but at the same time it lends 46:25.253 --> 46:29.473 itself to us because we recognize that there's a reading 46:29.471 --> 46:34.001 problem or a piece of virtual work that needs to be overcome 46:33.996 --> 46:36.676 before you can get on with it. 46:36.679 --> 46:39.219 You have to find out what "pulls up" 46:39.219 --> 46:42.659 means in the same way that the adult reader of Pleasures of 46:42.661 --> 46:45.991 the Imagination has to find out what "plastic" 46:45.992 --> 46:46.672 means. 46:46.670 --> 46:50.320 As I say, it's a wonderful irony that this particular 46:50.322 --> 46:53.972 difficulty in reading is precisely what Gadamer calls 46:53.974 --> 46:55.804 being pulled up short. 46:55.800 --> 46:56.690 All right. 46:56.690 --> 47:00.180 So you solve the problem and then, lo and behold, 47:00.175 --> 47:03.415 it turns out that: It is my friend Bumpy. 47:03.420 --> 47:04.860 Bumpy gives me a push. 47:04.860 --> 47:07.040 He pushes and pushes and-- I'm on my way. 47:07.039 --> 47:07.869 "Thank you, Bumpy," 47:07.865 --> 47:08.275 I call back. 47:08.280 --> 47:09.840 "You're welcome," says Bumpy. 47:09.840 --> 47:12.260 Now I think we get another expectation. 47:12.260 --> 47:15.860 This is the kind of story that has a moral. 47:15.860 --> 47:18.530 It's a feel-good story. 47:18.530 --> 47:20.780 Something good has happened. 47:20.780 --> 47:25.160 A sense of reciprocity is established between the tow 47:25.161 --> 47:29.881 truck and the person who helps the tow truck out of being 47:29.882 --> 47:32.962 stuck-- a fine sense of reciprocity, 47:32.963 --> 47:36.813 so the expectation is that there will be a moral. 47:36.809 --> 47:41.009 The tension or suspense is: what will the moral be? 47:41.010 --> 47:43.360 There are a variety of ways, in other words, 47:43.360 --> 47:45.990 in which this story, just like The Rime of the 47:45.985 --> 47:47.895 Ancient Mariner, could end. 47:47.900 --> 47:50.420 It's by no means clear that The Rhyme of the Ancient 47:50.420 --> 47:52.800 Mariner will end with "Love all things, 47:52.800 --> 47:53.540 great and small things." 47:53.539 --> 47:56.159 It could have ended any number > 47:56.161 --> 47:58.281 of other ways, and just so this story could 47:58.279 --> 47:59.539 end a number of ways. 47:59.539 --> 48:01.999 It happens to end "Now that's what I call a 48:01.996 --> 48:02.776 friend." 48:02.780 --> 48:03.790 Well, fine. 48:03.789 --> 48:08.679 The moral is that reciprocity is friendship and so good, 48:08.679 --> 48:12.269 all to the good, but as I say there's a moment 48:12.271 --> 48:17.221 of suspense in the expectation at the point in the text when we 48:17.221 --> 48:22.571 expect a moral but we don't know what the moral is going to be. 48:22.570 --> 48:26.660 Once again, there is that moment of suspense that the 48:26.657 --> 48:30.977 reader is able to get through with a kind of pleasurable 48:30.981 --> 48:36.251 excitement and then overcome as the moral is actually revealed. 48:36.250 --> 48:39.860 So even Tony the Tow Truck, in other 48:39.856 --> 48:43.526 words, is not absolutely culinary and 48:43.534 --> 48:49.164 can be treated in ways that I hope shed some light on the 48:49.159 --> 48:51.069 reading process. 48:51.070 --> 48:51.860 All right. 48:51.860 --> 48:55.250 The time is up, so let me conclude by saying 48:55.253 --> 48:59.833 that if there is this remarkable distinction between 48:59.833 --> 49:02.853 Gadamer and Iser, between canons, 49:02.851 --> 49:07.551 where the methodology of Gadamer seems to impose on us a 49:07.554 --> 49:12.094 traditional canon and the methodology of Iser seems to 49:12.085 --> 49:15.415 impose on us an innovative canon, 49:15.420 --> 49:20.500 isn't there some relief in historicism after all-- 49:20.500 --> 49:22.470 because the whole point of historicism, 49:22.469 --> 49:26.089 as Gadamer himself puts it, is that it lets the canon be? 49:26.090 --> 49:31.190 We're not interested in establishing a principle of 49:31.192 --> 49:34.052 value that shapes a canon. 49:34.050 --> 49:38.040 We're interested in hearing everybody on his or her own 49:38.036 --> 49:40.616 terms and letting those texts be. 49:40.619 --> 49:43.939 In other words, doesn't historicism open the 49:43.940 --> 49:47.650 canon and indeed make the process of reading, 49:47.650 --> 49:52.650 the experience of reading, archival and omnivorous rather 49:52.650 --> 49:54.170 than canonical? 49:54.170 --> 49:59.350 If every text just is what it is and we can't bring, 49:59.349 --> 50:02.849 methodologically speaking, any kind of preconception to 50:02.851 --> 50:06.161 bear on what's a good text or what's a bad text, 50:06.159 --> 50:10.639 haven't we solved the problem of the limitation imposed on the 50:10.641 --> 50:13.581 reader by any kind of canon formation? 50:13.579 --> 50:17.009 Well, that's the case only, I say in conclusion, 50:17.005 --> 50:21.155 if we can distinguish between meaning and significance. 50:21.159 --> 50:25.139 In other words, only if we really are sure that 50:25.135 --> 50:29.715 the historicist act of reading is effective and works, 50:29.717 --> 50:32.827 if I know the meaning of a text. 50:32.829 --> 50:33.579 Well, fine. 50:33.579 --> 50:36.069 Then later on, if I wish, I can establish a 50:36.072 --> 50:39.522 canon by saying certain texts have certain significance and 50:39.516 --> 50:43.076 those are the texts that I care about and want to read, 50:43.079 --> 50:46.279 but I can only do that if I can distinguish between meaning and 50:46.284 --> 50:47.064 significance. 50:47.059 --> 50:49.789 But if meaning and significance bleed into each other, 50:49.789 --> 50:53.459 what I'm going to be doing is establishing a canon, 50:53.460 --> 50:56.230 as it were, unconsciously or semiconsciously. 50:56.230 --> 50:58.780 I'm going to say, "Ah, this is just what the text 50:58.782 --> 51:00.522 means," but at the same time, 51:00.518 --> 51:03.198 I'll be finding ways, without realizing it, 51:03.199 --> 51:06.829 of affirming certain kinds of meaning and discrediting certain 51:06.831 --> 51:09.741 other kinds of meaning-- all the while saying, 51:09.739 --> 51:11.619 "Oh, it's just meaning. 51:11.619 --> 51:15.139 I'm not doing that." 51:15.139 --> 51:18.299 But if in fact my reading practice can be shown not 51:18.297 --> 51:21.767 clearly to distinguish between meaning and significance, 51:21.773 --> 51:24.303 well, then that's what would happen. 51:24.300 --> 51:28.170 So it's still up in the air and it's still perhaps inescapable 51:28.172 --> 51:31.402 that we read, as it were, canonically, 51:31.398 --> 51:36.458 but by thinking of various approaches to hermeneutics in 51:36.458 --> 51:39.958 these terms, I think what's shown is that 51:39.960 --> 51:44.750 there is a relationship between methodology and canon formation, 51:44.750 --> 51:49.330 that certain things follow from our assumptions about how to 51:49.326 --> 51:49.866 read. 51:49.869 --> 51:54.999 Evaluation would seem rather at a distance removed from simple 51:54.996 --> 51:59.996 considerations of how to read, but in fact I think we've shown 51:59.996 --> 52:04.236 that evaluation is in one way or another implicit in certain 52:04.237 --> 52:08.757 methodological premises as they establish themselves in the work 52:08.764 --> 52:10.924 of these various writers. 52:10.920 --> 52:11.460 Okay. 52:11.460 --> 52:12.490 Thank you very much. 52:12.489 --> 52:18.999