The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett

Like no other art form, the novel confronts its readers with circumstances aring from their own environment of social and historical norms and stimulates them to assess and criticize their surroundings. By Analyzing major works of English fiction ranging from Bunyan, Fielding, Scott, and Thackery to Joyce and Beckett, renowned critic Wolfgang Iser here provides a framework for a theory of such literary effects and aesthetic responses.

Iser's focus is on the theme of discovery, whereby the re...