The dangling conversation: the location and function of author, text and reader in literary texts

Abstract

This article is a discussion of some aspects of reader response. It attempts to track the development of various theories: from the view of the text as an entity set in stone, through structuralist and phenomenological arguments, to the point where the text becomes a virtual dimension. But not only is the importance of the text within the literary whole under review; what happens when the reader reads is considered, as is the location, indeed the very existence, of the author. Importantly, illustrations of how reader response theories assist readings of literature within the classroom, in order to achieve meaning, are included here.