The work is more than the text, for the text only takes on life when it is realized, and furthermore the realization is by no means independent of the individual disposition of the reader – though this in turn is acted upon by the different patterns of the text. The convergence of text and reader brings the literary work into existence, and this convergence can never be precisely pinpointed, but must always remain virtual, as it is not to be identified either with the reality of the text or with the individual disposition of the reader.
Beginning as a blog back in the autumn of 2016, a dynamic reader was set up to document my ongoing research into how readers process narrative and the readings they create. And whilst the beginning of my own interest remains elusive, the beginning of my academic research is definite: ‘Unstable by Design’: The Programmatic Use of Perspective in Catullus 64. That MPhil thesis was a paradigmatic analysis of a first century BCE Latin text which charted the intertextual and intratextual negotiations between implied author, narrator and characters of a verse narrative set in the time of myth. The research (and methodology employed) developed further in a PhD thesis; this time a syntagmatic analysis of the Argonautica, a third century BCE Hellenistic epic (and for the experienced reader, Catullus 64’s primary intertext), A.R. 1.609-1077: An Intertextual and Interpretative Commentary.
My postgraduate research had established models e.g. Irene de Jong’s various narratological analyses of Homer, my supervisor Andrew Morrison’s work on The Narrator in Archaic Greek and Hellenistic Poetry and the intertextual methodology employed by Stephen Hinds (following/adapting Gian Biagio Conte). Yet, as the PhD became more clearly reader-orientated (incorporating two fictional readers of differing experience as heuristic aids in investigating e.g. the generation and misdirection of expectations), Meir Sternberg’s influence became more pronounced. Hence the ‘dynamic’ which qualifies the ‘reader’ here, signposting an ongoing interest in the ‘dynamics of the reading process’.
And a reader need only glance at the Living Handbook of Narratology to realise how much has been built upon those Structuralist foundations, not least by an increased emphasis on Cognition.
To the contrary, stories are cognitive as well as textual in nature, structures of mind as well as constellations of verbal, cinematic, pictorial, or other signs produced and interpreted within particular communicative settings. In other words, narratives (the Iliad, an episode of the Star Trek television series, the film or graphic novel versions of Ghost World, anecdotes exchanged among friends during a party, the courtroom testimony of a witness to a crime) result from complex transactions that involve producers of texts or other semiotic artifacts, the texts or artifacts themselves, and interpreters of these narrative productions working to make sense of them in accordance with cultural, institutional, genre-based, and text-specific protocols.
Essentially then, this began as a work-in-progress and a document of a process: a document of my scanning around, picking stuff up and seeing what practical use I might make of it. We all have our project goals and mine remains a monograph exploring degrees of experientiality in the reading of richly intertextual narratives. In that process, I’ve discovered all manner of interesting research projects (see The Reading World) and have added links and relevant feeds around this site. If you know of more (and I expect there are glaring omissions) please get in touch via the contact form. The reader interested in cognitive approaches should see especially the comprehensive bibliography compiled by Emily Troscianko, and for recent applications of cognitive theory to Classical texts, the reader can consult the important and ongoing work of Jonas Grethlein, Luuk Huitink, et al. at the research project Experience and Teleology in Ancient Narrative.
It is the virtuality of the work that gives rise to its dynamic nature, and this in turn is the precondition for the effects that the work calls forth. As the reader uses the various perspectives afforded him by the text in order to relate the patterns and the “schematized views” to one another, he sets the work in motion, and this very process results ultimately in the awakening of responses within himself. Thus, reading causes the literary work to unfold its inherently dynamic character.
Following the switch to online learning post Covid-19 outbreak, I’ve added as a separate page a collection of links to learning resources for Classicists of all ages, abilities and interests. It’s far from complete but provides plenty of paths to venture down.
Recent Papers
‘Communicating Epic Love: a cognitive poetic analysis of erotic discourse in Argonautica 3’, Siculorum Gymnasium, LXXII, V, 2019.
‘Entering the Labyrinth: Mapping Contextual Frames in Catullus 64’, conference paper, Antiquity and Immersivity (March 2021 Bristol).
‘Speaking Art, Speaking to Art: Metaleptic Communications in Catullus 64’, conference paper, Poetics and Linguistics Association Annual Conference (July 2021 Nottingham).
‘The Resilient Reader on Lemnos’, conference paper, Crisis and Resilience in Hellenistic Poetry (September 2021 Groningen).
References
Herman, D. (2009) Basic Elements of Narrative, Oxford.
Iser, W. (1972) ‘The Reading Process: A Phenomenological Approach’, New Literary History 3: 279-99.
