From the Editors

Author(s): R. C.
Source: New Literary History, Vol. 31, No. 1, On the Writings of Wolfgang Iser (Winter, 2000),
pp. 1-4
Published by: Johns Hopkins University Press
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 From the Editors

This issue
of New Literary History is devoted to the writings of
Wolfgang Iser; the essays address, almost exclusively, the books
that he has published. The essayists here are properly concerned
with discussing the significance of his books, but there is an aspect of his
that is not discussed: his contributions written as essays and
writings
in New Literary History. For more than a quarter of a century,
published
Wolfgang Iser has been involved in the inquiries, aims, experiments and
direction of the journal. From the first article that he published in the
Winter 1972 issue entitled "The Reading Process: A Phenomenological
Approach" to his editing and introducing the "25th Anniversary Issue"
(Autumn 1994), more of his writings have appeared in New Literary
than those of other critic or
History any essayist.1
The journal was founded in 1969 to inquire into the nature, function
and aims of "literature," of and of the of
"history," changing conceptions
the "new." In to "literature," the considered what the
regard inquiries
limits of the "literary" might be, what "history" was and how it inter
sected with the "literary," and how the "new" literary history differed
from and/or was incorporated into the old. New Literary History was
international in scope from its beginning, and by dealing with arts and
disciplines that intersected with the literary, the journal was obviously
interdisciplinary. It was this open-endedness that attracted Wolfgang
Iser, and it was his boundary-crossing of philosophy, anthropology and
literature that made his writing so central in with the issues of
dealing
the journal.
Wolfgang Iser was invited to the New Literary History conference at
Bellagio in 1973, joined the board of Advisory Editors in 1974, and
published his second essay, entitled "The Reality of Fiction: A Function
alist Approach to Literature," in the journal (Autumn 1975).2 His first
essay had argued innovatively that the convergence of text and reader
brings the literary work into existence; though this convergence can
never be it must remain virtual, as it is not
precisely pinpointed, always
to be identified the reality of the text or with the individual
either with
disposition of the reader. This view of the text as a virtual phenomenon
resulting from the convergence of a duality was to become for Iser one
of his most fruitful insights. It was to lead him in time from an inquiry
into literature to an inquiry into the nature of human behavior.
"The Reality of Fiction" dealt with the literary text as incorporating

New Literary History, 2000, 31: 1-4

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2 NEW LITERARY HISTORY

within it actual
thought systems as well as elements of, and even
complete, literary traditions. These provide the "dialogue" between text
and reader and thus amplify what Iser meant by "convergence" in his
earlier essay. In this essay convergence a "deforming" that made
implied
the fictive text different from reality. But insofar as chapters in a text are
often written in different styles, the gaps in coherence are filled by the
reader's Even this was an extract from a book
imagination. though essay
that became The Act of Reading, the reader's imagination was to be
rethought by Iser and was to become for him a major insight into
human behavior.
His next contribution was published in the tenth-anniversary issue of
New Literary History (Autumn 1979) and was entitled "The Current
Situation of Literary Theory: Key Concepts and the Imaginary."3 This
essay out that structure, function and communica
important pointed
tion had an "all-pervading importance in present day discourse" and
that these concepts provided a valuable basis for diversification of views
of the text. But this "very diversification of meaning makes dubious the
assumption that meaning is the 'be-all and end-all' of the literary text"
(17). Not meaning but the "imaginary" was the basis of the literary text
and the was a of the earlier of conver
imaginary reconceiving concept

gence. The "imaginary" was a fusion that existed not merely in literary
texts but in manifold aspects of human behavior. Iser explained that the
was first as a concept that applied to literary
imaginary being opened
theory, but cultural anthropological frames of reference were required
in order to inspect the imaginary in all its protean manifestations.
Iser's call for connecting literary study with cultural anthropology
could serve in the tenth anniversary of the journal to remind readers of
its own aims and New devoted each issue to a
practices. Literary History
and made available to readers a number of
particular subject divergent
responses to it. These responses sometimes established a dialogue
among contributors. But even when such dialogue could not be
established, each issue had a commentator who sought to clarify the
and formulate the nature of the In
arguments carefully disagreements.
this respect Wolfgang Iser was a model commentator. He not only
sought to describe as carefully as possible the various positions but also
to the values and limits of each. The
sought explain tenth-anniversary
issue became the first of a number of issues in which he served as
commentator.

In the Winter issue on the "Interrelation

1984 of Interpretation and
Creation," he as commentator
served on papers contributed by Hilary
Putnam, Richard Wollhein, Umberto Eco, Ren? Girard, David Tracey,
and Norman Holland, among others. There he saw his most useful
purpose in tracing "the underlying trends concerning creation and

interpretation."4 This discussion of diverse views also provided him with

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 FROM THE EDITORS 3

an opportunity to develop his own position, to ground the interplay

between creation and interpretation in a concept beyond both, namely,
the imaginary. With regard to interpretation and creation he wrote:
"Interpretation indicates the dominance of the conscious over the
imaginary, and creation swamps the conscious by the imaginary" (395).
The two activities are interlinked and they testify to something in the
human WTiat this dimension Iser reiterated, were
makeup. required,

explorations in cultural anthropology.

In the Autumn 1990 issue of New Literary History, Wolfgang Iser
published "Fictionalizing: The Anthropological Dimension of Literary
Fictions."5 It was his effort to venture into the unexplored territory of
cultural anthropology as an insight into fictionalizing. His inquiry was
clearly focussed: why do human beings seem to need fictions? This is a
profound essay (it became part of The Fictive and the Imaginary: Charting
Literary Anthropology) and it argues that fictionalizing provides human
kind with possibilities of self-extension, but also exposes inherent
deficiencies of human beings?the fundamental inaccessibility to them
selves. The important challenge of these insights for the study of
behavior should not be overlooked, and Wolfgang Iser's contributions to
New Literary History provided a structure of their emergence.
In the Winter 1991 issue centered around "Institutions of Interpreta
tion," Iser wrote the "Concluding Remarks."6 Here he proposed to
explore the limits of discourse by delineating the violations and distor
tions discourses inflict on one another and he noted that such conflicts
were at least an to democratize
attempt interpretive paradigms by
disputing each others' superiority or validity. Such disputes, he pointed
out, should lead us to we need
inquire why interpretation.
The following year?Autumn 1992?Wolfgang Iser published "Stag
ing as an an essay that consisted of portions
Anthropological Category,"
of his then-forthcoming book, The Fictive and the Imaginary: Charting
Literary Anthropology.1 The essay introduced one of the key concepts of
the book?the need for human beings to explore by fictionality their
own mutually exclusive selves: "This inherent doubling of fictionality
may be conceived as 'a place of manifold in which every
mirroring,'
thing is reflected, refracted, fragmented, telescoped, perspectivized,
exposed or revealed" (878). "Staging" reveals human plasticity, but in
extending our imagined possibilities it also reveals the fictionality of
these possibilities.
Wolfgang Iser's turn to cultural anthropology in search of answers to
human beings' need for fictionality exposed the inevitable move beyond
literature that such exploration required. His intellectual pursuits have
intersected with those of New Literary History and his contributions have
served to sustain its interdisciplinary and transcontinental inquiries.
When in Autumn 1994, he edited the twenty-fifth anniversary issue of

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4 NEW LITERARY HISTORY

the journal, he did not mention his own valuable contributions and his
unusual affiliation with it for a quarter of a century. There he formu
lated the practices of New Literary History as follows: "The very focus of
the journal made it necessary to branch out into adjacent fields,
inspecting ways of thinking in the arts and sciences. The procedures in
modern technology and model-building, the basic fabric of social
institutions as well as of the patterns of culture and
interpretations,
everyday life, the interrelation of interpretation and creation were only
a few of the themes examined in various issues from differing viewpoints
and disciplines." (TY 733)
Wolfgang Iser's relation to New Literary History extends to all the
activities in which the journal has been involved. He has not only
participated in its conferences, he has also lectured to the students at
the University of Virginia and was a visiting fellow of the Commonwealth
Center for Literary and Cultural Change. To all these occasions, he
brought an and original point of view. As lecturer and
independent
teacher, he created a following that has helped reshape the study of
literature. He developed an interdisciplinary basis for the study of
literature and is himself the model of the international scholar. He
represents the values that New Literary History has come to In
exemplify.
his writing, he has raised questions that have opened literary studies to
new fields and he has himself offered answers that have challenged
critics and theorists to rethink their assumptions. This issue, devoted to
his writings, is a proper occasion to pay tribute to his engagement with
New Literary History and to the valuable intellectual directions he has
initiated.

RC

NOTES

1 Wolfgang Iser, "The Reading Process: A Phenomenological Approach," New Literary

History, 3 (1972), 279-99; Wolfgang Iser, "Twenty-Five Years New Literary History: A Tribute
to Ralph Cohen," New Literary History, 25 (1994), 733-47; hereafter cited in text as TY.
2 Wolfgang Iser, "The Reality of Fiction: A Functionalist to Literature," New
Approach
Literary H?tory, 7 (1975), 7-38.
3 Wolfgang Iser, "The Current Situation of Literary Theory: Key Concepts and the
New Literary History, 11 (1979), 1-20.
Imaginary,"
4 Wolfgang Iser, "The Interplay Between Creation and Interpretation," New Literary

History, 15 (1984), 387-95; hereafter cited in text.

5 Wolfgang Iser, "Fictionalizing: The Anthropological Dimension of Literary Fictions,"
New Literary History, 21 (1990), 939-55.
6 Wolfgang Iser, "Concluding Remarks," New Literary History, 22 (1991), 231-39.
7 Wolfgang Iser, "Staging as an Category," New Literary History, 23
Anthropological
(1992), 877-88; hereafter cited in text.

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