Wolfgang Iser’s book The Act of Reading explores several different aspects of the reader himself and also how that reader actually reads through literary works. In chapter two, Iser discusses several ways that the reader has been broken down and explained, developing certain types of readers. These types of readers include the real reader, the ideal reader, the superreader, the informed reader, and the intended reader. Iser also goes on to explain what he deems valuable and problematic about each type of reader. His own concept of the implied reader is also included, along with key elements of the implied reader that separates this type of reader from the other ones mentioned above.
The real reader is someone who has actually read the book and has thoughts about it, whatever those thoughts may be. The real reader has certain roles which includes having a history of response to the work and evaluating judgments people make. Of course, these roles depend on the reader itself. Whether the reader is male or female, educated or not, exposed to new ideas every day, are all high factors when it comes to the influences that help the reader connect with the text. The real reader must not sacrifice their own beliefs for fear of losing the “whole repertoire of historical norms and values…”(37). If that loss were to take place, several more losses would occur, including “the loss of the tension which is a precondition for the processing and for the comprehension that follows it” (37). When it comes to the real reader, there are two “selves” (37) that are worth exploring. The first self is the role brought on, or instilled, by the text. This first role will always be the strongest, but will also maintain the reader’s personal nature in the process. The second self is the reader’s own personality and kinship to the text. This self will always have a dramatic influence on the reader’s interpretation and viewing of the text itself. Overall, the real reader greatly depends on the survival of the text. If the text is older and hardly read anymore, the aspect of the real reader greatly depends on the author’s intent. Is the reader supposed to be as the author intended or is the reader supposed to take on the personality of the actual readers within the time period that the book surfaced. Furthermore, Iser states that “the real reader is always offered a particular role to play, and it is the role that constitutes the concept of the implied reader” (34-35).
The ideal reader realized all of the potential meanings of the text in hopes that communication is possible, thus the hope that gaps can be filled, allowing maximum coherence. This type of reader should have complete familiarity with the text. With that said, this reader does not even need to read the actual text. Although, in order for the reader to realize all meanings of the text would require said reader to be outside of time, history, and culture. Only this would allow the reader to fully comprehend the text, thus exhausting the literary text. Iser says, “It is difficult to pinpoint precisely where [the ideal reader] is drawn from, though there is a good deal to be said for the claim that he tends to emerge from the brain of the philologist or critic himself” (28). He goes on to say that “an ideal reader is a structural impossibility as far as literary communication is concerned” (28). This reader has to be very close to the author and his/her views in order to understand the literary text in its entirety. Therefore, there is a definite need for a mind like the authors in this case. One might say that the author is his/her own ideal reader, seeing as how no one has the same mind as the author.
Michael Riffaterre’s superreader is a collective of readers. This collective looks for “nodes” in the text that represent “a stylistic fact” along with a “divining rod” (30) that is supposed to discover dense spots of reading in the actual text. This collective of readers also succeeds in eliminating idiosyncratic readings. Thus a collective readership is essential to identifying structural features of a text. Iser says, “The superreader represents a test concept which serves to ascertain the ‘stylistic fact,’ pointing to a density in the encoded message of the text” (34).
Stanley Fish’s informed reader focuses on the activity of reading in real time. This reader focuses on enhancing his/her competence through self-discipline. Fish defines his informed reader as “someone who 1.) is a competent speaker of the language out of which the text is built up. 2.) is in full possession of ‘semantic knowledge that a mature … listener brings to this task of comprehension.’ … 3.) has literary competence … The reader … is this informed reader, neither an abstraction, nor an actual living reader, but a hybrid – a real reader (me) who does everything within his power to make himself informed” (31). In order to have this extreme competence, the informed reader must also be able to stay aware of his/her own reactions so that they can be controlled.
Erwin Wolff’s intended reader is a concept that interprets and identifies the historical audience the author was aiming for when the work was written. Iser explains how Wolff’s “intended reader, as a sort of fictional inhabitant of the text, can embody not only the concepts and conventions of the contemporary public but also the desire of the author both to link up with these concepts and to work on them – sometimes just portraying them, sometimes acting upon them” (33). With this reader’s role set in motion, it is possible to interpret the actual audience that the author intended to reach.
The problem that Iser finds with the real reader is that in essence of the real reader, everything depends on the survival of the valuable documents. When years have passed and these documents are difficult to find, or cannot be found at all, then the question is brought up as to what the reconstruction of the lost text corresponds to. Does it correspond to the real reader of the time when the text was written, or does it correspond to the representation of the role which the author intended the reader to assume? The difficulty with the ideal reader is knowing where to take the reader from. Does this reader come from the mind of the philologist or the critic? Iser then claims that the superreader “is not proof against error” (31). Furthermore, “The very ascertaining of intratextual contrasts presupposes a differentiated competence and is dependent not lest on the historical nearness or distance of the group in relation to the text under consideration” (31). Iser sees the informed reader with and without flaws. The flaw he sees with this type of reader is that it starts purely from grammatical perspectives, abandons it during the process, and then accesses an experience that is “inaccessible to the theorist” (32). Although, Iser also finds value in the informed reader because it shows “that an analysis of text processing requires more than just a linguistic model” (32). The intended reader is valued by Iser because it allows the reconstruction of the reader that the author originally intended to address.
Iser’s concept of the implied reader “embodies all those predispositions necessary for a literary work to exercise its effect – predispositions laid down, not by an empirical outside reality, but by the text itself (34). The implied reader should not be defined with any other type of reader because this reader has every part of him inside the text, especially the historical part. Iser goes on to say, “The concept of the implied reader is therefore a textual structure anticipating the presence of a recipient without necessarily defining him…” (34). The network of the implied reader ultimately satiates readers by influencing them to take hold of the text as a whole.
Unlike every other type of reader, the implied reader has to be allowed indetermination. No assumptions about the reader’s particular situation, education, or cultural background must be made. Furthermore, the reader has to be prepared to participate in this process because the text is communicative.
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