Introduction

The subject of this book is the literary theory and criticism of Wolfgang Iser
(19262007), a German scholar whose academic fame originates in the readeroriented approach to literature which he pioneered in the 1970s. Together with
his colleagues from the newly established university of Constance, Iser developed a method and theory of reading that proved highly influential. For his
reception theory and associated notions such as indeterminacy and the implied reader resonated with similar developments in other countries, most notably the US, and ensured that his publications had a wide audience.
Despite the unquestioned importance of Isers theoretical reflections, they
have never been the subject of a comprehensive study. Scholars including Winfried Fluck and Brook Thomas have noted that his thought is broader and more
up-to-date than the continued reference to the work of the seventies might suggest.1 However, these observations have not led to a detailed, book-length analysis of Isers multifaceted theory. The similarities and differences between the various phases of his theoretical project have, therefore, not been adequately
described. This is unfortunate, because his writings, especially when read in isolation, often appear impenetrable. As his translator, among others, has noted,
Isers theory explores processes that are important but also defy verbal expression: the somethings that take place between text and reader, that emerge
from the interaction, that drive us to embrace fictions, that trigger, modify, transform our responses.2 Considering his publications as a whole helps to dispel
some of this confusion. In respect of his literary criticism, many commentators
have labeled Iser a modernist, because of his lifelong interest in T.S. Eliot, James
Joyce and Samuel Beckett, and have therefore ignored other aspects of his writings. Other critics, by contrast, have argued that Isers theory not only sheds light
on twentieth-century literature but also illuminates crucial aspects of Renaissance and Enlightenment culture. But again, these isolated remarks have not
been developed in a systematic fashion. This book fills in these gaps by analyzing
and comparing the different aspects of Isers literary theory and criticism in detail, and presents us with an alternative Iser, one that may seem new to students
and scholars of literary theory. As I will show, his oeuvre ultimately advances a
systematic reflection on modernity, meaning and humanity, as well as on the

1 See Winfried Fluck, The Search for Distance. Negation and Negativity in Wolfgang Isers
Literary Theory, New Literary History, 31.1 (2000), 175210; Brook Thomas, The Fictive and the
Imaginary. Charting Literary Anthropology, or, Whats Literature Have to Do with It?, American
Literary History, 20.3 (2008), 62231.
2 David Henry Wilson, Working with Wolfgang, Comparative Critical Studies, 1.12 (2004),
1925 (p. 20).

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2 Introduction
way these phenomena intersect in the novel, a literary form which throughout
history has enabled its readers to imagine other realities.
As I have noted, Isers work is a particular form of literary theory. The question of what literary theory means is a complex one, and I will not be able to
address it fully here. Instead, let me briefly recapitulate four ways of thinking
about the theoretical study of literature that are relevant to my approach. First,
Rene Wellek and Austin Warren famously argue that literary theory refers to the
study of the principles of literature, whereas literary criticism refers to studies of
concrete works of art.3 Literary theory is the study of general principles, literary
criticism that of specific works. Although Isers work actually straddles both disciplines, my book (notwithstanding its forays into Anglophone literary criticism)
will focus more on general questions than on those which relate to a specific
work. Second, Antoine Compagnon, inspired by the use of the term in the 1960s
and 1970s, claims that literary theory denotes a sort of counter-discourse, which
challenges the premises of traditional literary criticism, including those of Wellek
and Warren. Targeting received ideas about literature, [t]heory is opposed to
common sense.4 According to this definition, the literary theorist does not study
the general principles of literature, but criticizes the presuppositions that plague
the common reader as well as the traditional professor of literature. In line with
this definition, both Isers work and this book aim to criticize, or at least nuance,
certain literary prejudices.
Two other proposals offer further clarification, even though they do not use
the term literary theory. Mieke Bal argues that research in the humanities must
seek its heuristic and methodological basis in concepts rather than methods.5 Bal
describes her own project as cultural analysis, and emphasizes its interdisciplinary rather than literary character; but nonetheless, her remarks may be used to
develop another definition of literary theory, in which it does not function as a
methodological framework, but as a sustained attempt to clarify and revitalize
the words and concepts these miniature theories6 used by literary critics and
ordinary readers alike. In this spirit, this book sees Isers oeuvre as a profound
and sustained reflection on the notions of life, the novel, aesthetics, myth, modernity, negation, fiction, culture and theory itself. Finally, Peter Lamarque distances himself from the counter-intuitive literary theory a` la Compagnon, and

3 Rene Wellek and Austin Warren, Theory of Literature (London: Peregrine Books, 1968 [1949]),
p. 39.
4 Antoine Compagnon, Literature, Theory, and Common Sense, trans. by Carol Cosman
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004 [1998]), p. 9.
5 Mieke Bal, Travelling Concepts in the Humanities. A Rough Guide (London: University of
Toronto Press, 2002), p. 5.
6 Ibid., p. 22.

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Introduction 3

promotes the philosophy of literature, a branch of aesthetics that subjects general questions about critical practice and [...] the special features of reading literature as literature to lucid conceptual analysis.7 In a similar fashion, this book
strives to give an accessible analysis of the conceptual issues dealt with by Iser.
These different but, to my mind, not necessarily incompatible ways of thinking about the theoretical study of literature clarify both what is at stake in Isers
work and the aims of this book, which seeks to describe it. Specific literary works
will play an important role, but the principal aim is to nuance literary prejudices
including those of Iser through a lucid analysis of general principles and important concepts.
Each of the following chapters adopts a roughly similar structure. They all
focus on the theoretical argument of a specific book or a related set of books by
Iser, supplemented by related passages from smaller essays or more literarycritical publications. My analysis is originally based on the German versions of
his works, as their chronology and formulation sometimes differ from that of the
official English translations. Isers study of Walter Pater was translated in the
1980s, for instance, but was originally published in German in 1960. The German
table of contents of Isers book on Shakespeare contains the phrase Ordnungsschwund und Politik [Politics and Loss of Order] an explicit reference to the
work of philosopher Hans Blumenberg , whereas its English counterpart substitutes the much less specific Manipulation of the World Order. In many other
cases as well, important information is lost if we do not start out from the German
versions of Isers books, even though he collaborated on and authorized their
translations in English.8 For ease of comprehension and reference, however, I
will quote from the more easily accessible English translations where they are
available and supply my own version where they are not, or a modified version
where they are not satisfactory (for long quotations, I have included the original
German versions in the footnotes).
To contextualize these German books, each chapter also begins with a brief
analysis of their reception or the institutional setting in which they were produced. While neither aspect is discussed at length here (a detailed study of Isers
reception alone would require a book of its own), it is nonetheless important to
touch on the reception of different parts of his theory by other critics, and on how
his books originated within particular institutional settings or debates. Furthermore, by tracing conceptual similarities and differences with other thinkers, we
are not only able to place Isers thought in context, but also to pinpoint its specific contribution to literary studies. A good example is the comparison with Ro7 Peter Lamarque, The Philosophy of Literature (Oxford: Blackwell, 2009), p. 11.
8 For a candid account of Isers collaboration with his translator, see Wilson, Working with
Wolfgang.

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4 Introduction
ger Caillois in Chapter 4, which clearly reveals the aesthetic agenda behind
Isers literary anthropology. The selection of complementary thinkers referred to
in this study is obviously limited, and other choices would certainly have been
possible. Exploring each of Isers intertexts in detail would be a massive and
overly complex undertaking, however, which would confuse rather than clarify
his argument. Hence, this book draws attention to those links which are crucial
for a comprehensive understanding of Iser, including both familiar connections
Booth, Ingarden as well as equally important but more unexpected links
Kierkegaard, Blumenberg, Caillois, Kermode, Hofstadter.
Each of these five chapters also has a more practical component. My analyses always conclude with a brief example drawn from contemporary literature, in
order to demonstrate the practical and continued relevance of Isers abstract
theoretical insights. I have chosen to focus exclusively on novels (albeit novels
from different subgenres, including the contemporary novel of manners, the historical novel, the post-colonial novel, the fantasy novel and, briefly, the nonfiction novel) because this was Isers main research area, and because I feel that
the work of extrapolating his insights to other cultural practices (theatre, film,
comic books, videogames) merits a separate study. Even though I have limited
myself to a select number of examples, it goes without saying that my brief discussions of these novels cannot do full justice to the works concerned. Since my
chief concern is Isers theory, I will only discuss those aspects of the texts in
question that shed light on his argument, and must neglect their other features.
Given that literary theory does not deliver ready-made reading methods, but simply provides us with concepts which illuminate particular textual structures,
these examples merely show what happens when we juxtapose Isers ideas with
contemporary texts. They are meant as illustrations, in other words, not as fullyfledged analyses or blueprints for a methodology.
My determination to demonstrate the continued relevance of Isers insights
should not be misunderstood either. Even though I am convinced that his work is
more fruitful than most critics assume, I do not, of course, follow his every word
unquestioningly. Rather, this book aspires to a sort of critical charity, to modify
an idea from The Range of Interpretation. I read Isers work with W.V.O. Quines
principle of charity in mind which states that you should interpret the speakers statements in the most rational and truthful manner possible but still accept that certain parts of his theory are flawed and problematic. In addition to
highlighting the practical potential of Isers insights, each of my chapters therefore identifies some of their problems.
Moreover, each chapter discusses a theme or concept central to Isers oeuvre
by addressing the period in which it was most prominent. There are two methodological issues here. First, as many of Isers themes and concepts recur
throughout his oeuvre and are conceptually related, the student of his work is

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Introduction 5

faced with the problems of homonymy and synonymy. If Iser uses the same term
in different phases of his career, can we assume that these terms have the same
meaning? When his late publication The Range of Interpretation refers to life,
for instance, are we allowed to think of the notion of life from his first book Die
Weltanschauung Henry Fieldings [The Worldview of Henry Fielding]? Conversely,
when confronted with the different phases and notions of his work, the question
arises whether notions such as the aesthetic, negativity, the imaginary and translatability are truly different, or at least partly synonymous. The only adequate
way to resolve this issue, I think, is to pay careful attention to the nature and
function of these terms within their different contexts. A related problem is the
inevitable tension between continuity and change, similarity and difference in
his thinking. Read in the light of his entire oeuvre, Isers later writings often seem
to return to earlier ideas, and earlier works frequently appear to anticipate later
reflections. At times, I will therefore deviate from the linear trajectory of my narrative, working both proleptically and analeptically. To put it in an Iser-like fashion, we might say that this book first evokes a chronological narrative and then
revokes it by highlighting the recurrence of certain concepts and themes. We
should bear in mind, however, that such an approach lends a consistency to this
body of writings that is undoubtedly more a construct than a reality.
To conclude this introduction, let me briefly survey the five chapters of the
book. Chapter 1, Comic and Aesthetic Novels, sketches Isers early academic
career and the beginnings of his theory, with particular reference to his two dissertations. As I will demonstrate, Isers PhD thesis, Die Weltanschauung Henry
Fieldings (1952), draws on the anthropological typologies of the Geistesgeschichte movement to analyze the different comic strategies in Fieldings work. Paying
special attention to the novel, Isers account is clearly shaped by Georg Lukacss
account of this quintessentially modern genre. In his Habilitation, Walter Pater.
Die Autonomie des sthetischen [later translated as Walter Pater. The Aesthetic
Moment] (1960), Iser discusses the aestheticist novels and essays of Walter Pater
on the basis of Sren Kierkegaards proto-existentialist work Either/Or (1843). As
we shall see, this discussion culminates in Isers early account of the aesthetic
state, an artistically fruitful but morally problematic condition that remains a
central concern in much of his later thinking. Chapter 2, Montage and Modernity expounds the view of history and modernity behind Der implizite Leser [The
Implied Reader] (1972) by analyzing Isers related contributions to the early Poetik und Hermeneutik conferences, looking closely at their accounts of montage,
myth and metaphor. The chapter goes on to explore his analysis of
Shakespeares history plays and their evocation of modern meaning and politics
in Shakespeares Historien [later translated as Staging Politics] (1988). Both his
contributions to these conferences and his work on Shakespeare reveal the importance of Hans Blumenbergs thought for Isers theory, and call into question

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6 Introduction
the frequent claim that he shows little or no interest in questions of history. Chapter 3, The Phenomenology of Reading, offers a detailed examination of Isers
Der Akt des Lesens [The Act of Reading] (1976), the book that truly launched his
prodigious career as a theorist. By comparing it with Roman Ingardens related
work on the structure and reading of the literary work, this chapter revisits important questions concerning the nature of literary fiction, the role of the readers imagination, the temporal character of reading, and the artistic uses of indeterminacy and negation. Chapter 4, Fictions, Roles and Games, unfolds the
literary anthropology hinted at in the transitional work Prospecting (1989) and
fully explored in Das Fiktive und das Imaginre [The Fictive and the Imaginary]
(1991). My reading explains the remarkable sections on pastoral fiction and modern epistemology in the latter work, and examines Isers return to the topics of
fiction, imagination and reading, as well as his turn to notions such as the imaginary, role-playing and games. Chapter 5, The Recursions of Culture, concludes my quasi-chronological overview by analyzing Isers final studies, The
Range of Interpretation (2000) and How to Do Theory (2006). In these highly selfreflexive works, Iser considers the nature of literary interpretation and theory,
two practices in which he himself had been engaged for much of his academic
career. Implicitly, these books also claim that the recursive procedures of literary
reading function as a model for a more dynamic account of culture and a more
open-minded form of intercultural exchange. Together, they broaden the range
of Isers reflections further, for his insights on translation and feedback prove relevant to all forms of human discourse, despite their roots in literary reading and
novelistic forms.
By discussing the different phases of Isers theory in fairly self-contained
chapters we risk losing sight of their underlying similarities. In his overview of
ancient Greek and Roman civilizations, The Classical World (2005), Robin Lane
Fox struggles with a similar problem, albeit one significantly larger in scope.
Rather than write isolated chapters on topics such as gender and work in classical antiquity, Fox says, he chose to concentrate on the shifting shapes of three
fundamental themes that were in the minds of contemporary people, namely
freedom, justice and luxury.9 He feels that giving details of the changing connotations and functions of these three concepts helps him avoid reducing the different periods of classical antiquity to a false unity. For similar reasons, my book
not only explains the different phases of Isers theory in isolation, but also identifies three fundamental issues of its own, which return in different guises
throughout his work. In the final analysis, his various publications introduce different ways of thinking about modernity, meaning and humanity. As the following
9 Robin Lane Fox, The Classical World. An Epic History from Homer to Hadrian (New York: Basic
Books, 2006), p. 7.

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Introduction 7

chapters show, his work on the novel, literary history, the reading process, literary anthropology and cultural recursion invariably underscores the productive
nature of the modern age, the semantic potential of indeterminate literary texts,
and the dynamic character of human beings. By sounding out the changing connotations of these related concepts, my study simultaneously identifies the terminological and conceptual differences between the various phases of his theoretical reflection. Hence, this book offers both an introduction to and a new
interpretation of Germanys leading literary theorist of the last forty years.

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