How should I read?

Eichenbaum's "defamiliarization" deals with noticing only what is out of the ordinary, in order to freshen and renew readers' perceptions (923). This privileges certain literary works that make "the familiar strange" (923). Wimsatt and Beardsley want literary theorists to ignore the author's intention when judging a literary work, leaving the text as its own authority. Iser discusses how texts are constructed through a person's reading process according to that individual. Texts are actively constructed by the individual. Fish focuses on the experience of the reader in their encounter with the text.

Ignoring for the moment that Mary Shelley was... Mary Shelley. Ignoring the historical context and the time it was written in, the person who wrote it and the occasion for the writing... where do we as readers stop? If I'm only to analyze the text, how do I know what to include and disregard? Shelley leaves readers a lot of clues as to how the novel should be read, how readers should read. Do I disregard that as it falls under the heading, "author's intentions" or do I keep it because it's in the text?

The monster begins to read, and funny enough, in the style that Iser encourages. The monster "applied much personally to my own feelings and condition" (86). He compares himself to the character, finding himself "similar, yet at the same time strangely unlike the beings concerning whom I read" (86). The monster learns "high thoughts" and how to "admire and love the heroes of past ages" from Plutarch, yet admits that "many things" he read "surpassed...understanding and experience" (86). If we are to apply Fish to the monster-reader, the monster's encounter with the text is one of confusion. Although he was "perfectly unacquainted" with many of the topics he comes across, he still feels "ardour for virtue" and an "abhorrence for vice," allowing them to "take a firm hold on [his] mind" (87). What are we readers, separated from the monster-reader, to take away from this moment? Is this Shelley suggesting tips to potential readers? Her advice on 'what to do when you don't quite understand a text'? If so, she tells us to understand it in our own way, like Iser implies, even if it is inapplicable to us. Even if we encounter things "that surpass our understanding and experience"? I should make assumptions and attempt to draw... something... from the text?

This sounds like terrible advice.

Similarities in Formalism and Marxism

In Eichenbaum’s essay, he quotes Sklovsky’s Theory of Prose saying “The work of art arises from a background of other works and through association with them. The form of a work of art is defined by its relation to other works of art?” (937). How is this similar to Harold’ Blooms claim in The Anxiety of Influence that all poems are derivative of previous poems?

Eichenbaum quotes Shklovsky again claiming that “in each literary epoch there is not one literary school, but several. They exist simultaneously, with one of them representing the high point of the current orthodoxy. The others exist uncanonized. (948). How does this relate to the Marxist ideas of dominant and emergent culture? How is this related to Deleuze and Guattari’s conepts of minor literatures?

How does the shifting narrative voices in Frankenstein moderate the relationship between the reader and the text? Is Victor’s narrative fundamentally a different relationship with the reader than the narrative of the monster? Why is it framed by a narrative of the captain?

If a reader “puts into execution a different set of interpretive strategies” leading to a “different succession of interpretive acts” (1989), how can any reader agree on the interpretation of a reading?

Reader as Interpreter of Form

Hey Everyone!

I posted my seminar paper on blackboard. After reading the works for this week, I was left with several questions, which I tried to come to terms with in my paper, but I'm still left wondering some things. Does our interpretation of Frankenstein change when we know it was written by a woman? Can we avoid the baggage that we come in with knowing when, in what country, and by whom a work is written? Sometimes, it seems impossible to avoid these associations, so in what way might they change our reading of a work? In some ways, I agree with the formalists that if some part of the historical background and historical context is meant to enhace the meaning of a work then it will make it's way into the work. But not every poem one reads says the year it was written, so does this affect our ability to make sense of certain works? Or is this not important at all?