Review of Wolfgang Iser and His Reception Theory

Abstract

Wolfgang Iser is one of the famous advocates of Reception Theory in contemporary literary field. His Reception Theory is different from another famous advocate Jauss in many ways. This paper attempts to give an in-depth analysis of Wolfgang Iser and probes into his Reception Theory in the following seven aspects: the production of meaning; the implied reader model; the functionalist model of the text; processing the text: a phenomenology of reading; literature and communication: interaction between text and reader; Iser’s literary anthropology; and reception theory meets cognitive criticism.