Three Concepts of the Reader and Their Contribution to a Theory of the Literary Text

Some critics see the recent interest in readers and reading as a threat not only to authorship but to the very notion of text. This paper contends that no such threat exists since contemporary concepts of the reader are rather the result of a displacement which works to extend the privileges of literariness and authorship. A typology of concepts of the reader as signifiers in the language of metaliterature can be established, as shown in the table. the ideal reader, whether authorial or critical, is a relatively simple projection which ignores the text and glorifies the self. the implied reader, whether intended, inscribed or functional, is an interpretive device resulting from a need for “internal” evidence or which allows hidden shifts from internal to external evidence. the empirical reader, more or less active, conscious and autonomous, is a highly ideological tool which mediates value judgements on the social role of literary texts. Studies of an ideal reader (as evoked at the beginning of Fleurs du Mal), of an implied reader (Culler's competent reader) and of an empirical reader (Ugo Margolin's) prove that concepts of the reader do not function as “ordinary” signs but are of a figural nature and work “backwards” ‐ i.e. they are overdetermined and euphemistic. In conclusion, individual critics should not be made responsible for this phenomenon which is inherent to the tertiary nature of metaliterary language. In comparison, the literary text's process of signification could be seen precisely as an ability to move forward and backward, oscillating “freely” from pragmatic reference to critical reference through fictional reference.