Editing Reader-response criticism (section)

===Uniformists===

[[Wolfgang Iser]] exemplifies the German tendency to theorize the reader and so posit a uniform response. For him, a literary work is not an object in itself but an effect to be explained.  But he asserts this response is controlled by the text.  For the "real" reader, he substitutes an implied reader, who is the reader a given literary work requires.  Within various polarities created by the text, this "implied" reader makes expectations, meanings, and the unstated details of characters and settings through a "wandering viewpoint".   In his model, the text controls. The reader's activities are confined within limits set by the literary work.

Two of Iser's reading assumptions have influenced reading-response criticism of the New Testament. The first is the role of the reader, who is active, not passive, in the production of textual meaning. The reader fills in the "gaps" or areas of "indeterminacy" of the text. Although the "text" is written by the author, its "realization" (''Konkritisation'') as a "work" is fulfilled by the reader, according to Iser. Iser uses the analogy of two people gazing into the night sky to describe the role of the reader in the production of textual meaning. "Both [may] be looking at the same collection of stars, but one will see the image of a plough, and the other will make out a dipper. The 'stars' in a literary text are fixed, the lines that join them are variable."<ref>Wolfgang Iser, ''The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett.'' (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974), 282</ref> The Iserian reader contributes to the meaning of the text, but limits are placed on this reader by the text itself.

The second assumption concerns Iser's reading strategy of anticipation of what lies ahead, frustration of those expectations, retrospection, and reconceptualization of new expectations. Iser describes the reader's maneuvers in the negotiation of a text in the following way: "We look forward, we look back, we decide, we change our decisions, we form expectations, we are shocked by their nonfulfillment, we question, we muse, we accept, we reject; this is the dynamic process of recreation."<ref>Wolfgang Iser, ''The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett.'' (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974), 288</ref>

Iser's approach to reading has been adopted by several New Testament critics, including Culpepper 1983,<ref>R. Alan Culpepper, ''Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel: A Study in Literary Design'' (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983)</ref> Scott 1989,<ref>Bernard Brandon Scott, ''Hear Then the Parable: A Commentary on the Parables of Jesus'' (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1989)</ref> Roth 1997,<ref>S. John Roth, ''The Blind, the Lame and the Poor: Character Types in Luke-Acts'', Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series 144 (Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997)</ref> Darr 1992, 1998,<ref>John A Darr,''On Character Building: The Reader and the Rhetoric of Characterization in Luke-Acts'', Literary Currents in Biblical Interpretation (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1992); ''Herod the Fox: Audience Criticism and Lukan Characterization'', Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series 163 (Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998)</ref> Fowler 1991, 2008,<ref>Robert M. Fowler, ''Let the Reader Understand: Reader-Response Criticism and the Gospel of Mark'' (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1991); "Reader-Response Criticism: Figuring Mark's Reader," in ''Mark and Method: Approaches in Biblical Studies'', 2nd ed., ed. Janice Capel Anderson and Stephen D. Moore (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2008), 70-74</ref> Howell 1990,<ref>David B. Howell, ''Matthew's Inclusive Story: A Study of the Narrative Rhetoric of the First Gospel,'' Journal for the Study of New Testament Supplement Series 42 (Sheffield, England: JSOT Press, 1990)</ref> Kurz 1993,<ref>William S. Kurz, ''Reading Luke-Acts: Dynamics of Biblical Narrative'' (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1993)</ref> and Powell 2001.<ref>Mark Allan Powell, ''Chasing the Eastern Star: Adventures in Biblical Reader-Response Criticism'' (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001)</ref>

Another important German reader-response critic was [[Hans-Robert Jauss]], who defined literature as a [[dialectic]] process of production and [[Reception theory|reception]] (''Rezeption''—the term common in Germany for "response").  For Jauss, readers have a certain mental set, a "horizon" of expectations (''Erwartungshorizont''), from which perspective each reader, at any given time in history, reads. Reader-response criticism establishes these [[horizons of expectation]] by reading literary works of the period in question.

Both Iser and Jauss, along with the ''Constance School,''  exemplify and return reader-response criticism to a study of the text by defining readers in terms of the text. In the same way, [[Gerald Prince]] posits a "narratee", [[Michael Riffaterre]] posits a "superreader", and [[Stanley Fish]] an "informed reader."  And many text-oriented critics simply speak of "the" reader who typifies all readers.