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Modern Language Association

Do I Write for an Audience?Author(s): Wolfgang IserSource: PMLA, Vol. 115, No. 3 (May, 2000), pp. 310-314Published by: Modern Language AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/463451

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PMLA

correspondents abroad

Do IWrite or

an Audience?

WOLFGANG ISER

WOLFGANGSER,n honorary member

of the MLA,s professoremeritusat the

Universityof Constance, in Germany,

and professorof Englishat the Univer-

sityof California,rvine.His most recent

books areStaging Politics:TheLasting

Impactof Shakespeare'sHistories(Co-

lumbia UP, 1993), The Fictiveand the

Imaginary:ChartingLiterary nthropol-

oqy (JohnsHopkinsUP,1993),and The

Rangeof Interpretation ColumbiaUP,

2000). Ininviting his essay,PMLApro-

posed the question "Whom are you

writing or?"

FACEDWITHTHEQUESTION"WHOMAREYOUWRITINGFOR?"

I WOULD HAVETOSAY,NO SPECIFIC UDIENCE.BUTI DO NOT

wantto createan audienceeither,a goal thatfor a scholar-criticwouldbe

unachievableanyway.I have neitherwrittena textbook for studentsnor

promulgated ny partisannterest, orI haveno politicalagenda.Further-more,I have always painstakinglyavoided playing up to fashion. Do I

thenwrite for my peers only? If not,whatis thepurposeof my scholarly

engagement?There s no doubt hatone wouldlike to have readers.How-

ever,does an intendedreadership et the guidelines,or does one wantto

communicatesomethingto potentialreaders?Audience-relatedwritingis to a largeextent conditionedby what one assumesto be adequate,ben-

eficial, opportune,necessary, advantageous,and also enlighteningfor

those whom one addresses. This holds true even if the appealis critical

because, more often thannot, criticismis meant to make the audience

aware of what they can do to improve their situation. Thus audience-

relatedwritingis basically affirmative,and affirmationpresupposesan

indisputableknowledgeto be transmitted. am not one of those critics

who set out to providecorroborative vidence for specialcauses,such as

nowadaysoftenmotivatepolitically inspiredaudiences.

Insteadof writing or an intendedaudience,I havebeenmainlycon-

cerned withconceptualizingwhy art,and literature n particular, xists.

Tobe moreprecise,I amfascinatedby its function.Why humanbeingsneedfictions is a questionthatintriguedme veryearlyon, andliterature

appeared o epitomizethis human desire for self-extension.This issue,

however,appearedout of sync with the scholarlycommunityof the six-

ties, when New Criticalapproaches

were stillrampant

and, above all,when the dwindling social relevance and even the death of literature

were the warcry of many intellectuals. Writingin that situationmeant

going against hegrain.ButI could notdo thisby adoptinga competitive

ideological positionin order o combat hose who intended o abolishlit-

eraturealtogether;nstead,it was necessaryto establishparameters hat

allowed for a differentiated xaminationof what was at issue. Thequestforsuchparametersmarked hetheoretical urn n thestudyof literature.

? 2000 BY THE MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIAT-ION OF AMERICAIo

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Wolfgang Iser 31153 ]

Theory,as I see it, was firstandforemostan

attempt in the sixties and seventies to devise

framesbothfor a rational xchangeof views and

for conceptualizing the function of literature.Frames of this kind were meant to sort out the

confusion thatprevailedamong not only those

in theprofessionbut also a widerpublicover the

alleged dispensabilityof make-believe.Simulta-

neously, heywereto counter hemyopic percep-

tion of literatureas a representationof society,

thusopeningupa broader pectrum f what iter-

atureallows us to scrutinize.Developing theoryat this juncture was a response to a prevailing

predicamentn literary tudies.

Literary heory s soft theorybecause t doesnot makepredictions.ncontradistinctiono hard-

coretheory,such as physics, it cobbles ideas to-

gether in a form of bricolage and remains tied

to a subject matterthat it alone can elucidate.

Since literaturehas long since lost its erstwhile

importance as the capstone of bourgeois cul-

ture,it was amazingthat the "nurseriesof inter-

pretation" Wolfgang Kayser's term)were still

flourishing to such an extent in the postwar

yearsthatdigging for meaningappeareda self-

legitimizing enterprise. It hardly dawned on

those who were committed to the activity that a

single text seemed to have differentand at times

evencontradictorymeanings.

Eventually hisexcavationof meaning ed to

questionsaboutwhy themeaninghad been con-

cealed inthetext andwhyauthors hould ndulgein such a gameof hide-and-seekwiththeir nter-

preters.What urnedoutto be even morepuzzlingwas why the meaning-once found-should

changeagain,eventhoughtheletters,thewords,andthe sentences of thetext remained he same.

Graduallyucha situation-when realized-cre-

ated anawareness thatthepresuppositionsgov-

erning nterpretation erelargelyresponsible or

whatthetextwassupposed o mean.

Reception theory was therefore a reaction

to what appearedto be a stalemate in literarystudies. Of paramountconcern for this theorywas the impact a piece of literature has on its

readers and the responses it elicits. Insteadof

askingwhatthe textmeans,I asked what itdoes

to its potential readers. This switch entailed a

hermeneuticalproblem,because the now invalidcriteria of interpretationhad to give way to

questions that did not arise out of the old an-

swers. Nonetheless, these questions could not

have arisen had it not been for the old answers

that hey replaced.Thelatter, hen,were not dead

and buriedbut lived on as a negative fountain-

head for new questions. The author's ntention,

the work'smessage, the valuemanifested n the

harmonious reconciliation of textual ambigui-ties-all of themconstitutedthe background o

the theory of aesthetic response. The messagethat was no longerto be ascertainedriggeredn-

terest n what has since been called textprocess-

ing-what happens o thetext in reading.

Consequently, aesthetic response, as the

hallmark f reception heory, s tobeconceived n

termsof interaction etween ext andreader. call

it aesthetic response because it stimulates the

reader's magination,which in turngives life to

the intended effects. If the study of literature

arises out of concernwith texts, there canbe no

doubting heimportance f whathappens o us as

readers f those texts.A literarywork s not adoc-

umentaryrecordof somethingthat exists or has

existed; it brings into the world something that

hithertodid not exist andthatat best can bequali-fied as a virtualreality.Consequently,my theoryof aestheticresponse ound tselfconfrontedwith

theproblemof how suchemergingvirtualreali-

ties, which have no equivalentin ourempirical

world,canbeprocessedand, ndeed,understood.

Reception heory ocusednotonly onthein-terfacebetween text andreaderbut also on that

between textandcontext.Therefore, hefollow-

ingconsideration ecamepertinentor me.Every

literary extnormallycontainsa selectionfrom a

varietyof social, historical,cultural,andliterary

systemsthatexist as referentialieldsoutside the

text.This selection is anoversteppingof bound-

aries n that heelementsselectedare iftedout of

the systems in which they fulfill their specific

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312 Do I Write for an Audience?

functions.Thisappliesboth to culturalnormsand

to literaryallusions,which areincorporatednto

every new literarytext in such a way that the

structureand the semantics of the systems con-cerned are decomposed; the systems are re-

arrangedwhen selectedfeaturesof themreappearin the text. These rearrangementsmove the sys-tems intofocus, so thattheycan be discerned as

referential ields of the text. So long as they are

organizedunits of thegivenworld, n whichtheyfulfill theirregulatoryfunctions,they are taken

forreality tself andthus remainunobserved.The

selection disassemblestheirgiven order, hereby

turning hem ntoobjectsfor observation.The lit-

erary ext, therefore,does notcopythe referentialfield to which it relates; nstead t is a reaction o

the extratextualsystems whose elements have

beenincorporatednto the text.

As a rule, literatureaddressestheproblemsinherentn thesystemsreferredo, so thatwe can

constructwhateverwas concealed or ignoredin

the systemsconcernedor in the ideologies of the

day, because their deficiencies form the focal

point of the work. At the same time, the text

must implicitly contain the basic frameworkof

the respective systems, for these are what cause

theproblems hat iterature eacts o. Since litera-

tureendeavors o counter hoseproblems, he lit-

eraryhistorianshould be able not only to gaugewhich of the systems were dominantat the time

of the work'screationbut also to reconstructhe

weaknesses and the historical humanimpactof

thesystemsconcerned. f we were to applyR. G.

Collingwood's question-and-answer logic, we

might say that literatureanswers the questions

arisingout of the systemsof its environment.Focusing primarilyon two points of inter-

section-between text and contextandbetween

text andreader-reception theory,as I have tried

to formulate t, conceives of literatureas a form

of interaction. This conception goes againstthe aurasurrounding utonomousart,as well as

against henotionof literature s arepresentationof life; instead,by interveningncontextualreal-

ities, literaturerefracts life's multifariousness.

Withthis switch of focus I did not wantto appealto a specific audience but was respondingto a

growing dissatisfaction in literarystudies. The

discontentarosepartlyout of the trendsprevalentat the tilme: heprivilegingof subjective nclina-

tions throughanemphasison whatliteraturehas

to offer oneself and aMarxist-inspiredociologyof literature,whichdenigratedhe workto a doc-

ulent for bearingoutpreconceived deologies. I

tried o counter ubjectivismhroughaphenome-

nology of reading,focusing on whathappens n

readingand on how the reader s engagedinpro-

cessing the text. I tried to counter the ramipantidea of base and superstructurehrougha func-

tionalist approach. highlighting how literaturereacts to its referential realities by making in-

roads ntothem.therebydisrupting ndrearrang-

ing theirstructure nd semantics.

Dealingwiththetwotypesof interfaceposeda mlethodologicalchallenge, not least because

theyare bothintangible.For this reasonIdevised

a heuristicsthat,hermeneeuticallypeaking,is to

be subjected o correctionwhenl mpirical nves-

tigations of readingcall for the fine-tuningof

what was initially posited.A phenomenologyof

readingand a functionalist pproach re.tobegin

with,ideal constructs hat, llow for a diagnostic

insight into what happens in reading and into

how literature ntervenes ncontextual realities.

but they are also open to possible revisions of

their theoreticalparameterswhennecessary. In

thisrespect reception theorydistiiiguishes itself

from what is still current in literary studies-

namely. a takeover of theoretical frames from

otherdisciplinesfor the purposeof superimpos-

ingthemi n what s to be scrutinized.Ifa theoryof aestheticresponseconcerns t-

self first and foremiostwith the concretizationof

a text- -that s, the text's realization n the read-

er's consciousness- it levertheless alerts us to

certainhumandispositionsthat arc workedon in

thatprocess.Whilereading,we aretransposed o

a realmoutsidcourbodily existence. llavingthe

illusion of leadinganother ife. We are with and

simultaneouslyoutsideourselves, and we obvi-

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Wolfgang Iser 313

ously enjoy such a doubling. Situations of this

kind were initially not in the orbit of reception

theory,buttheyposedanopenquestionto me.

WhatI have since called literaryanthropol-ogy is thus a directoffshoot of reception heory,

andit triesto handlethe issues thatthe latter eft

dangling,becausethe functionof literatures by

no meansentirelycoveredby its interactionwith

its readersandwith its referential ealities.More-

over. f a literary ext does something o its read-

ers. it simultaneously tells us somethingabout

them. Thus literature urnsinto a divining rod,

locating ourdispositions, desires. and inclina-

tions and eventually our overall makeup. This

gives rise to the question of why we may needthis medium, especially in view of the fact that

literature asbeenputon a parwith othermedia,

whose ever-increasingrole in our civilization

shows how much literaturehas lost its signifi-

cance as the epitomeof culture.If literature till

has anythingto offer that the competingmedia

are unable to provide, it is insight into the all-

pervadingneedof humanbeingsfor fictions.

Literary nthropology, s I conceivedit, has

to highlight why such a fictionalizing activity,

rangingfrom lying to dreaming,permeateshu-

man life. Fictionalizing begins where knowl-

edge leaves off. and this dividing line turns out

to be the fountainheadof fictions by means of

which we extend ourselves beyond ourselves.

The anthropologicalsignificance of fictionaliz-

ing becomes unmistakable in relation to the

manyunknowablerealitiesthatunderlieourex-

istence. The beginningand the end areperhapsthe most all-pervading realities of this kind. If

fictionalizingtransgresses hose boundariesbe-yond which unrecognizablerealities exist, then

the very means we concoct to repairthis defi-

ciency-caught betweenour unknowablebegin-

ning and end-becomes indicative of how we

conceive of what is withheld.inaccessible, and

tinavailable. In this respect, our fictions are a

measuring odby whichone may gauge the his-

torically conditioned changeability of deeplyentrenchedhumandesires.

If the borderlinesof knowledge give rise to

fictionalizing, we might perceive an economy

principleat work: whatcan be known need not

be staged again,and so fictionalityalwayssubsi-dizes the unknowable.This becomes strikinglyobvious when, in contradistinction o the inac-

cessibility of beginnings and endings, human

beings are in full possession of what is or of

what they are in. This applies to all those evi-

dentialexperiencesin life that arecharacterized

by certainty.Love is probablythe most intense

of these experiences, and it is also the central

topic of staging in literature.Evidentialexperi-

ence is almost like an assault: it happensto us,

andwe areinside it. But theexperienceawakensin us the desireto look at what has happened o

us, andthis is when the evidence explodes into

alternatives.Thus the certaintiesof experience

triggerthe need for stagingin exactly the same

way as the cardinalmysteriesdo.

Wecanonlypenetrate therwisenaccessible

realities(beginning,end, and evidentialexperi-

ences) by staging what is withheld.This enact-

ment is propelledby the drive to reachbeyondoneself-not so as to transcendoneselfbutso as

to become available to oneself. What cannever

becomepresent o ourselvesandwhateludescog-nition andknowledge and is beyond experiencecan enter consciousness only through feigned

representations,for consciousness has no bar-

rier-as Freud emarked-against theperceptibleandno defense against the imaginable. Conse-

quently, deas canbe brought orth n conscious-

ness from an as yet unknowablestate of affairs,

indicating that the presenceof the unknowable

does notdependonany preceding xperience.I am in complete agreementwith EricGans,

who once called literature"thediscovery pro-cedure of anthropology," hus pinpointing the

powerresidingin literature'smarginality. f we

tryto fathom the historical necessity of the lit-

erarymedium,what comes to the fore is the an-

thropological quipment f humanbeings,whose

life is sustainedby their magination.Evenif lit-

erature s considerednothingbut make-believe,

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314 Do IWrite for an Audience?

it nevertheless has a significant substratum-

that of humanplasticity, which manifests itself

in a continualrepatterning f the culturallycon-

ditioned shapes human beings have assumed.The limitless patterningsof humanplasticityre-

veal our inveterate urge to become present to

ourselves-an urgethat will neverissue in a de-

finitiveshape,becauseself-graspingarises from

overstepping imitations. Each individualshapeis an enactment, but not a reification, of self-

confrontation.If, throughits multiple culture-

bound patternings, the plasticity of human

natureallows for limitless self-cultivation, iter-

aturebecomes a panoramaof what is possible,

because it is not hedged in by the limitationsortheconsiderations hatdetermine he institution-

alized organizations within which humanlife

takes its course.

In a scientifically based, technological so-

ciety, there is no longer any grandstandview

from which to monitor or even evaluatehuman

activities. It is the elimination of suchtranscen-

dentalstancesin the currentworldthatelevates

literatureinto a vantage point, allowing us to

grasp the multiformity of the human makeup.

Watchingthe changing manifestations of self-

fashioning makes the human experience into

whatLeibnizonce called the "plenumof possi-

bilities,"and this gives literature ts anthropo-

logical dimension.

Reception theoryandliteraryanthropology,as I have tried to develop them in my writings,were not conceived for a specific audience. In-

stead,my guideline has always been to explorereasonsfor the existence of literature,which-

though make-believe-has been around for

more than two thousand years and which in

spite of its frequentlyproclaimeddeath will not

go away. Clearly it must have an importantfunction for humanlife, and investigating this

has beenmy basicobjective.

By now it will be evident that like most

writers,I initiallyaddressan audience of one-

myself. However,like most writersI live in the

hopethatmy own preoccupationswill strikean-sweringchords in others. In this respectI have

notbeen disappointed.Thereis, I mustconfess,a certaingratificationwhen one is confronted

with audiences of educatedpeople fromvarious

walks of life who wantto knowwhy I do what I

do and who appearto be intrigued by answers

like the following: aestheticresponsetries to as-

certainwhy readershave images in theirminds,

while only perceivingletters,and how this im-

agerycan be manipulatedby textualstrategies,

andliteraryanthropology riesto ascertainwhyhumanbeings standin need of fictionsin order

to extendthemselvesandin order o satisfytheir

inveterateurgeto be simultaneouslywith them-

selves andoutsidethemselves.

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[PMLA