To Fish, Wolfgang Iser as a scholar takes no side in literary theory, and not appears on anyones list. In the beginning of his article, Stanley Fish states that by taking no sides, Iser gets away with all the debates and appears to be influential without controversial(Fish 2) However, Iser doesnt consider his non-sided situation as a way to get away debates, but as to embrace the rightness of both sides without seeking to reconcile the incompatible. And he also thinks his influence comes from embracing the truth from various sides. (Iser 83) Later in the Why No Ones Afraid of Wolfgang Iser, Fish summarized the main idea of Isers theory and also points out how they are essentially contradictory. One of the Isers non sided ideas is his answer to the question of what is the source of interpretive authority, text or reader-Iser answer both. (Fish 3) For in Isers theory, they are both important for the concretization, and neither the text nor the readers possess the meaning. [R]ather it (meaning) is something produced or built up or assembled by a process of interaction in which the two parties play quite different, but interdependent roles.(Fish 3)Even though Iser still considers the reader is more prominent role, because the text itself has no meaning but a set of direction for assembling a meaning, which makes the meaning a dynamic happening. (Fish 4) When answering the differences between everyday languages and literary language, he states the literary text is distinguished from text of science because it has gaps or indeterminacies or blanks in it. And in exactly those people can fill in with according to their individual disposition(Fish 3) For in Isers theory, he thinks the text is ahistorical, but remains there is differences between the nineteenth and twentieth literary texts, which is becoming more and more indeterminate. Under the structure and construction of text, Iser points out that it provokes reader to an examination of their limitations and distortions (Fish 5) the last non sided idea of Iser, Fish picks out is the opposition between life and literature. To Iser, literature is not mimetic or representational; but literature is valuable because of the perspective it affords on life(Fish 5) By saying so, Iser means that when the reader puts words together, the texts begins exist as a gestalt in readers consciousness, and the gestalt which is readers consciousness is altered by the structure the text is building.(Fish 5) The readers images of virtual object therefore have a reciprocal effect. They are both changing in the process of reading. Later parts of the article, Fish highlights the contradiction within Isers article In order to explain how it works, he further develops his own
theory of given and supplied. Given ,which represents
empirical facts, to Iser is what an observer sees in the world, the objects that one can sense, and the experience the one has. Being different from given, Supplied represents what a reader invents or imagines by reading the text. Examining Isers application of his theory on Fieldinfs Tom Jones, Fish disagrees with Isers argument that by juxtaposing perfect, later taken in by Blifil, Allworthy and hypocritical Blifil creates gaps and blanks for readers to fill up. Fish argues that if we perceive Allworthy as a perfect man, then we would also assume him of not being taken in by a hypocrite. He also points out that thinking the perfect man is inseparable from the vulnerability shows good continuation with the result that Allworthy later being taken in by Blifil, a hypocrite,. Either way, this juxtaposition doesnt create gaps and blanks for reader to fill up, but shows the good continuation of the text. And Fish further argues that if texts cant offer clear gaps, not announce their shape but appear in variety, and blur the distinction between given and supplied, then it means he supplies everything. Another example Fish points out is Isers theory on a chapter of Vanity Fair entitled Arcadian Simplicity. To Iser that the Irony of Arcadian Simplicity is not explicit in the sense that it announces itself before interpretation begins; it will be ironic only in the light of an interpretation- specification of the authors purpose-already assumed.(8) However, Fish argues that its not necessary to be interpreted as explicitly Ironic at all, but readers building up can be really different from Iser and then develop the different meaning of its title Arcadian Simplicity. Although Iser thinks who makes the heading constitutes the determinate textual feature and lead readers to their development, Fish disagrees and points out that one cant perceive an interpretation before seeing and even seeing the heading is a perception. Fish poses further concludes that perception is never innocent of assumptions, and the assumptions within which it occurs will-be responsible for the contours of what is perceived.(8) Fish also points out some mistakes that Iser makes in his theory which he sees the world as a determinate object, and indeterminacy is specified feature of literary experience. For Iser, dialogue in face to face situation (perception) doesnt have the implicit meaning that literary dialogue (ideation) functions. By doing so, he distinguishes the perception and ideation. However, to Fish, perception itself is an act of ideation. (10) Moreover, Fish further indicates that all the experience and perception are under their conventional constraint, and community interpretation, therefore indeterminate.
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