The Hypothetical Reader

“…[I]n general, literary texts constitute a reaction to contemporary situations, bringing attention to problems that are conditioned though not resolved by contemporary norms.” (Wolfgang Iser, The Act of Reading: A Theory of the Literary Response, 1978, p.3)

Iser’s Act of Reading begins its theory-building task with a focus on the relative insignificance of the literary critic—more precisely the death of the revered literary critic, an irreplaceable figure in the 19th century when books and newsprint held a monopoly over information. Serious readers needed serious clarification in the old century. Like the tourist at an exhibit of cubist paintings, readers couldn’t get on with much of anything without someone answering the question “What in the world is this supposed to mean?”

The Romantic poet Shelley made an astounding claim about the reach of literary writers in his essay “Defence of Poetry” (1821): “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” Shelley was talking about dead writers like Thomas Paine and Voltaire, authors of ideas that set the world on fire and melted centuries old bonds of political power, writers fueling the democratic imagination.

In an essay Voltaire wrote words that show up in harmony in the U.S. Constitution: “All men have equal rights to liberty, to their property, and to the protection of the laws.” Bingo. Literature is the springboard to heaven on Earth according to the norms of the time. To grasp this wisdom, influential readers need guideposts in the form of critics.

Iser had more than one leg to stand on to support his announcement of the demise of literary Oracles by 1978. Who in their right mind would make such a claim today? Unacknowledged legislators? Give me a break.

Also quoted in Iser’s 1978 book, Thomas Carlyle, whom English majors have been required to read and write about on at least one exam question as undergraduates, added an exponential to Shelley’s comment. Critics, according to Carlyle in 1840, “…are a perpetual Priesthood…teaching all men that a God is still present in their lives…” (Iser, p.3). Of course, he was joking.

Carlyle, a satirist rivaling Jonathan Swift, is famous for his essay “Sartor Resartus,” a satirical essay first published serially in 1833. The title translates from Latin as “The Tailor Re-tailored” and is subtitled “The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh,” which means “Mr. Devil’s Dung” in German. This fictional German philosopher illuminates a la Steven Colbert the need for new ways to express human meanings, new clothes for forms becoming irrelevant. The old ones are dead, burial suits, corpses propped up by Priests.

Iser (1978) used Carlyle (1840) to get at what Iser meant with the phrase “contemporary norms,” the boundaries of expectations the reading public has for literature. Serious thinkers in powerful social, economic, and political positions actually read complex, demanding, current literature back in the day—President O’Bama was a throwback to an earlier time—and constructed meanings that were translated into action in the real world. Critics performed a service to humanity by helping them understand these determinate meanings.

*

Iser’s key idea is pretty simple. People are crazy and times have changed, to quote Bob Dylan (2004). 19th century literary texts had a recoverable meaning discernible through disciplined, analytical reading. Satire itself was a recognizable strategy wherein determinate meaning could be planted in the bed of text and harvested by diligent readers. By 1978, observed Iser, the tables had turned; literature was being read not for the meaning, but for the experience.

The existence of a determinate literary meaning, a chunk of rock carved into a statue, expressed in a work is denied, the author’s intentions dismissed, the locutionary force of words dialed down, while qualities of the aesthetic responses of the reader rose to prominence. This idea has entered disciplinary discourse as “reception theory.” Although not original with Iser, his analysis is an anchor for thinking about the function of literature in cultural discourse with relevance for all writers and readers.

Reception theory promoted the reader to full partner with the author, both agents finding personal emotional and intellectual significance through the act of reading; devouring a prepared feast as a passive guest at a textual Thanksgiving table cooked by Grandmother was a reader norm of past historical formations. Reception theory also problematized the definition of “a reader”in ways educators have yet to address.

Public schools today, in my view, operate under an oversimplification of “the reader,” a situation which has had profound consequences on contemporary reading practices and thereby on writing practices. The distinction between “narrative” and “informational” texts built into officially sanctioned curriculum and assessments indeed simplifies the curriculum, but it does theoretical violence to teacher thinking.

Most of my students in the Secondary Reading methods course I taught year after year until the early 2000s took up my question “What is a reader?” annoyed by its obviousness. A reader is an individual who can decode words and answer questions about what they read. Then we would talk, but it was an uphill trek. Unfortunately, through no lack of trying, I am sure most student left the class with the same multiple-choice, five-paragraph mindset they came with.

What is a reader?

*

Iser (1978) wrote specifically about two categories of readers: real readers, who have actually read the text in question and have an objective existence; and hypothetical readers “…upon whom all possible actualizations of the text can be projected” (p.27). For example, if one wrote about a piece of literature dramatizing the corruption of the American dream like “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald in the 1920s, one might conjure a hypothetical American reader sensitive emotionally to the dehumanizing effect of the pursuit of material wealth, perhaps conflicted because of a self-perceived unearned immunity from want, perhaps feeling lucky, perhaps frustrated and cornered. Gatsby himself embodies this corrupted dream, spending his ill-gotten gains to win the love of Daisy.

European hypothetical readers might read “The Great Gatsby” as an indictment of the ‘ugly American’ stereotype, loud, arrogant, demeaning creeps who would stab you in the back if it benefited them. In the context of the novel, European readers might have seen the characters’ opulent lifestyles, moral decay, and pursuit of wealth at the expense of others as a damning critique of American society and values. Some hypothetical European readers might find a touch of schadenfreude in Fitzgerald’s portrayal of American society.

*

The concept of the “implied reader” is central to Iser’s theory, a term which refers to the reader that the author anticipates while writing. I interpret the “implied reader” to be the product of the writer’s knowledge of real readers and conscious work to clarify hypothetical readers.

Although this idea has wide currency in the scholarly literature, I’ve never seen it addressed nor assessed explicitly as a reading standard, a curricular objective, or in an in vivo unit or lesson plan. As a learning outcome for reading pedagogy, it is useful because it identifies a concrete notion of how to search for textual silences or absences to be approached strategically by metacognitive readers looking for an answer to the question “What ideal reader is this text implying? What does it want from me? What do I think about that? How do I feel about that?”

Texts can never say everything they need to say to guarantee that a reader will locate a pristine meaning. Seen under a microscope, texts look like Swiss cheese, full of holes, blank spots. Mainstream reading research is clear and persuasive about the role of inferencing, using prior knowledge to plug holes or fill gaps in text, but much less insistent on the reader’s right to resist engaging in the writer’s conspiracy to claim a finite meaning inside the four corners of the text.

*

A word about the word “hypothesis.” As you probably know, the field of reading has become divided in partisan battle about how to teach beginning reading. Unfortunately, one side of the battle zeroed in on the phrase “reading: a psycholinguistic guessing game.” Readers ought not to be taught to guess, the other side insisted. The dispute has become a political battle with most state legislators passing laws mandating that reading SHALL NOT be taught as a “guessing game.”

My bet is that few legislators have the background to understand the grounds for this dispute and base their decisions on their emotional response to the word “guess.” If Ken Goodman had used the less catchy phrase “Reading: A Psycholinguistic Hypothesis-Testing Process,” we wouldn’t have this war.

A guess is made without any or with limited factual evidence or support, while a hypothesis is an educated assumption based on observations and existing knowledge. A guess is typically a casual prediction; a hypothesis is a plausible explanation serving as a starting point for further investigation or experimentation. Hypotheses are used in scientific methods like experiments or ethnographies to determine their validity. Guesses do not entail methodological approach and can’t be systematically tested. A hypothesis is intended to predict and be verified; a guess does not have this predictive power or requirement for testability.

When I taught my fourth graders—three years of riveting work I’d love to do again—I made them spell out their hypothetical reader after they told me about the real reader they had in mind. When they took a perch on the Author’s chair to get whole-class feedback on a penultimate draft—they knew what a penultimate draft meant—they commented on their hypothetical reader and their authorial aims. They could handle it.

Coming up with hypotheses is a rudiment of reading and writing without which language would be all but useless. A literary text—any text, really—implies a reader and it behooves the writer to investigate hypothetical readers systematically—a hostile reader, a careless reader, an easily confused reader, a quick-to-abandon-the-text reader, a prissy reader, a thin-skinned readers, an experienced reader, a lay reader.

The more complexity and nuance a writer intends to signal to a reader solidified into an implied reader as the text matures in composition, the more reason the writer has to attend to hypotheticals—and then to check against the responses of real readers.