Two Phenomenologies of Reading: Ingarden and Iser on Textual Indeterminacy

Abstract

ISER'S CRITIQUE OF INGARDEN Iser praises Ingarden's phenomenology for rejecting notion of an aesthetic observer (contemplator). This notion may lead us to view reading as contemplation (of aesthetic values) of a finished product. Instead of this notion of classical aesthetics, Ingarden introduces notion of concretization and makes reader one responsible for creation of literary of art as an aesthetic object. Prior to act of reading, 'the itself' is a skeleton of schemes. These schemes exist on different strata: stratum of sound, stratum of meaning-units, stratum of represented objectivities, and stratum of aspects. The reader concretizes work, turning a schematic formation into a full-fledged aesthetic object. Concretization is achieved by adding determinations to schemes of text on all strata. Yet determinations offered by reader in order to fill places of indeterminacy in stratum of represented objectivities cannot be seen as a in a sense which is analogous to performance of a musical score. In finding material for removal of textual indeterminacies reader draws on his own experience (in life and literature) in order to bring into existence a whole world of represented objects. The concretization of representational stratum is more clearly dependent on personality and experience of reader; demands made upon reader in connection with it are unique. Without meeting them partially at least, there is no way of turning the work into an aesthetic object (Ingarden, 1973a: 29f., 332ff.). Yet, according to Iser, Ingarden's descriptions still show influence of classical aesthetics. As Ingarden sees it, represented objectivities in literary of art are purely intentional. They owe their existence to author's intentionality, which supplies a schematic foundation for their being, and to reader's intentionality, which fills out these schemes. The task of reader to bring these into full being is exhausted by giving them appearance of real things (making them, in Ingarden's term, 'quasi-real'). As reader must do this in a way which fits structure of work, various schemes in (and more generally whole as a schematic formation) may be seen as a system which sets norms for appropriate concretizations (Iser, 1978: 171).2