468593 Stanley Fish

8/21/2019 468593 Stanley Fish

1/41

Literature in the Reader: Affective Stylistics

Author(s): Stanley FishReviewed work(s):Source: New Literary History, Vol. 2, No. 1, A Symposium on Literary History (Autumn,1970), pp. 123-162Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/468593.

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8/21/2019 468593 Stanley Fish

2/41

Literature

n

the Reader: Affective

tylistics

Stanley

ish

Meaning

s

Event

I.

F

AT THIS

moment

omeone

were

to

ask,

what re

youdoing? ,

you might

eply,

I

am

reading,

nd

thereby

cknowledge

he fact

that

reading

s

an

activity, omething

ou

do.

No one would

argue

that

the

act

of

reading

can take

place

in the

absence

of

someone who

reads-how

can

you

tell the dance

fromthe dancer?-but

curiously

enough

when it comes

time

to

make

analytical

statements

bout

the

end product of reading (meaning or understanding), he reader is

usually

forgotten

r

ignored.

Indeed in recent

iterary istory

e

has

been excluded

by egislation.

refer,

f

course,

o

the ex cathedra

pro-

nouncements

f

Wimsatt

nd

Beardsley

n

their

normously

nfluential

article

The Affective

allacy :

The Affective

allacy

is

a confusion

etween he

poem

and

its

results

(what

t is and what

t

does)

....

It

beginsby trying

o derive

he

stan-

dards

of

criticism

rom he

psychological

ffects

f the

poem

and ends

n

impressionism

nd relativism.

he outcome ..

is

that

the

poem tself,

s

an

object

of

specifically

ritical

udgment,

ends o

disappear.

In

time,

shall return

o

these

arguments,

ot so

much to refute hem

as

to affirm

nd embrace

hem;

but

I

would

first

ike

to demonstrate

he

explanatory

ower

of a method

of

analysis

which takes

the

reader,

as

an

actively

mediating

resence,

ully

nto

account,

nd

which,

herefore,

has

as its

focus the

psychological

ffects

f the

utterance.

And

I

would

like

to

begin

with a

sentence hat

does not

open

itself

p

to

the

questions

we

usually

sk.

That

Judas

perished

y

hanging

himself,

here s no

certainty

n

Scrip-

ture:

though

n one

place

it seems

o

affirm

t,

and

by

a doubtful

word

I

The Verbal

Icon

(Lexington,

Ky.,

1954),

P.

21.

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8/21/2019 468593 Stanley Fish

3/41

124

NEW

LITERARY HISTORY

hath

given

occasion to translate

t;

yet

in

another

place,

in

a

more

punctual

description,t

maketh t improbable,nd seems o overthrow

t.

Ordinarily,

one would

begin

by

asking

what

does

this

sentence

mean? or

what is it about? or what is it

saying? ,

ll of which

pre-

serve the

objectivity

f the utterance. For

my

purposes,

however,

his

particular

entencehas

the

advantage

of not

saying

nything.

That

is,

you

can't

get

a

fact

out of t whichcould serve s an answer

o

any

one

of

these

uestions.

Of

course,

his

difficulty

s itself fact-of

response;

and it

suggests,

o

me

at

least,

hat

what

makes

problematical

ense

as a

statementmakes

perfect

ense as a

strategy,

s an action made

upon

a

reader rather han as a container romwhich a reader extracts mes-

sage.

The

strategy

r action

here

s

one of

progressive

ecertainizing.

Simply

by

taking

n the

first lause of the

sentence,

he

reader

com-

mits

himself o

its

assertion,

that

Judas

perishedby

hanging

himself

(in

constructions

f

this

type

that

is

understood

o be

shorthand

or

the

fact

that ).

This

is not so

much a conscious

decision,

s

it is an

anticipatory

djustment

o his

projection

f

the

sentence's

uture

on-

tours.

He knows

withoutgiving

ognitive

orm

o

his

knowledge)

that

thisfirst

lause

s

preliminary

o some

arger

ssertion

it

is a

ground )

and he mustbe in control f it ifhe is to move easilyand confidently

through

what

follows;

and in the

context

of this

knowledge,

he

is

prepared,

gain

less

than

consciously,

or

any

one

of several

construc-

tions:

That

Judas

perished

y

hanging

himself,

s

(an example

for

us

all).

That

Judas

perished

y

hanging

himself,

hows

how

conscious e

was

ofthe

normity

f

his

sin).

That

Judas

perished

y

hanging

imself,

hould

give

us

pause).

The

range

ofthese

possibilities

and

there

re,

of

course,

morethan

I have

listed)

narrows

onsiderably

s

the

next threewords

are

read,

there s

no.

At this

point,

he

reader s

expecting,

nd even

predicting,

a

single

word- doubt ;

but instead

he finds

certainty ;

nd

at

that

moment

he status

of

the fact that

had served

s his

point

of

reference

becomes

uncertain.

(It

is

nicely

ronic hatthe

appearance

of

certain-

ty

should

be the

occasion

for

doubt,

whereas

he word

doubt

would

have contributed

o

the reader's

certainty.)

As a

result,

he

terms

of

the

reader's

relationship

o

the sentence

undergo

a

profound hange.He

is

suddenly

nvolved n a differentind of

activity.

Ratherthan

following

n

argument

long

a well

lightedpath

(a

light,

fter

ll,

has

gone

out),

he

is

now

looking

for

one. The natural

mpulse

n a

situa-

tion ike

this,

ither

n

lifeor in

literature,

s to

go

forward n the

hope

that what

has been

obscuredwill

again

become

clear;

but in

this

case


8/21/2019 468593 Stanley Fish

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LITERATURE IN

THE READER: AFFECTIVE STYLISTICS

125

going

forward

nly

ntensifies

he

readers

ense

of disorientation. he

prose

s

continually

pening,

but then

closing,

n the

possibility

f

veri-

ficationn one direction r another.There are twovocabularies n the

sentence;

one

holds out

the

promise

of

a

clarification- place,

af-

firm,

place,

punctual,

overthrow -while the other

continually

defaults n

that

promise- Though,

doubtful,

yet,

improbable,

seems ;

and the

reader s

passed

back

and forth

etween

them and

between

the alternatives-that

Judas

did or did not

perishby

hanging

himself-which are

still

suspended (actually

it is

the

reader

who is

suspended)

when the sentenceends

(trails

off?

gives up?).

The in-

determinateness

f

this

experience

s

compounded by

a

superfluity

f

pronouns. It becomes ncreasingly ifficulto tell what it refers o,

and

if the reader

takes

the trouble

o

retracehis

steps,

he

is

simply

ed

back to

that

Judas

perished by

hanging

himself ;

n

short,

he ex-

changes

an indefinite

ronoun

for n even ess definite

that

s,

certain)

assertion.

Whatever

s

persuasive

nd

illuminating

bout this

analysis

and

it

is

by

no

means

exhaustive)

is the

result of

my

substituting

or

one

question-what

does this

sentence

mean?-another,

more

operational

question-what

does this sentencedo?

And

what

the

sentence

does

is give the readersomething nd thentake it away, drawinghim on

with the

unredeemed

promise

of its return.

An observation

bout

the

sentence

s

an

utterance-its refusal

o

yield

a declarative

tatement-

has

been transformednto an

account of

its

experience

not

being

able

to

get

a

fact out of

it).

It

is no

longer

an

object,

a

thing-in-itself,

ut

an

event,

omething

hat

happens

to,

and

with the

participation

f,

the

reader. And it s this

vent,

his

happening-all

of t

and not

anything

that could be said about it

or

any

information

ne

might

take

away

from

t-that

is,

I

would

argue,

the

meaning

of the

sentence.

(Of

course, nthis ase there s no informationotakeaway.)

This is

a

provocative

hesis

whose

elaboration

and

defense

will be

the

concern

of

the

following

pages,

but

before

proceeding

to

it,

I

would

like

to

examine another

utterancewhich

also

(conveniently)

saysnothing:

Nor did

they

ot

perceive

he

evil

plight.

The

firstword of this line

fromParadise Lost

(I,

335) generates

rather

precise if abstract) expectation

f

what

will follow:

a

negativeassertionwhich will

require

for ts

completion

subject

and a verb.

There are then

two

dummy

slots

n the reader's

mind

waiting

o

be

filled. This

expectation

s

strengthened

if

only

because

it is not

chal-

lenged)

by

the

auxiliary

did

and the

pronoun they.

Presumably,

the verb

is not far behind.

But in its

place

the reader is

presented


8/21/2019 468593 Stanley Fish

5/41

S126

NEW

ITERARYISTORY

with a

second

negative,

ne

that can not

be accommodatedwithin

his

projection

of the

utterance'sform.

His

progress hrough

he

line

is

halted and he is forcedto come to termswiththe intrusive because

unexpected)

not.

In

effect hat the reader

does,

or

is

forced

o

do,

at

this

point,

s

ask

a

question-did

they

or didn't

they?-and

in

search

of

an

answer he

either

rereads-in

which case

he

simplyrepeats

the

sequence

of

mental

operations-or goes

forward-in which

case he

finds

he

anticipated

erb,

but

in

either ase

the

syntactical

ncertainty

remains

nresolved.

It

could be

objected

that the solution

to the

difficulty

s

simply

o

invoke

the

rule

of the double

negative;

one cancels

the

other

and

the

correct reading s thereforetheydid perceive heevil plight. But

however

atisfactory

his

may

be

in

terms

f

the nternal

ogic

of

gram-

matical

utterances

and

even in those terms there are

problems,2

it

has

nothing

o do with the

logic

of

the

reading

experience

or,

I

would

insist,

with ts

meaning.

That

experience

s a

temporal

ne,

and

in

the

courseof t the two

negatives

ombinenot

to

produce

an affirma-

tive,

but to

prevent

he reader

from

making

the

simple

(declarative)

sense which would

be the

goal

of a

logical

analysis.

To clean the

line

up

is to

take from

t

its most

prominent

nd

important

ffect-the sus-

pensionofthe readerbetween the alternativestssyntaxmomentarily

offers.

What is

a

problem

f the

line is

considered

as

an

object,

a

thing-in-itself,

ecomes

a

fact

when

it is

regarded

as

an occurrence.

The reader's

nability

o tell

whether

r not

they

do

perceive

nd his

involuntary

uestion

or

its

psychological

quivalent)

are

events n

his

encounter

with

the

ine,

and as

events

hey

re

part

of

the

ine's

mean-

ing,

even

though they

take

place

in the

mind,

not

on the

page.

Sub-

sequently,

we discoverthat

the

answer

to the

question

did

they

or

didn't

they,

s,

they

did and

they

didn't.

Milton s

exploiting

and

callingour attentiono) the twosensesof perceive : they the fallen

angels)

do

perceive

he

fire,

he

pain,

the

gloom;

physically

hey

ee

it;

however

hey

re

blind

to

the

moral

significance

f their

ituation;

nd

in that

sense

they

do not

perceive

the evil

plight

n which

they

are.

But that s

another

tory.

Underlying

hese

two

analyses

s

a

method,

rather

imple

in

con-

cept,

but

complex

(or

at least

complicated)

in execution. The

con-

cept

is

simply

the

rigorous

nd

disinterested

sking

of

the

question,

what

does

this

word,

phrase,

entence,

aragraph,chapter,

novel,

play

poem, do?; and the execution nvolves n analysisof the developing

responses

f

the

reader

in

relation

to the words as

they

ucceed

one

2

Thus

the line

could read:

They

did not

perceive,

which

is not the same

as

saying

they

did

perceive.

(The

question

is still

open.)

One could also

argue

that

not

is

not

really

negative.


8/21/2019 468593 Stanley Fish

6/41

LITERATURE

IN

THE READER: AFFECTIVE

STYLISTICS

I27

another n time.

Every

word n

this

tatement ears a

special

emphasis.

The

analysis

mustbe of the

developing esponses

o

distinguish

t from

theatomism f muchstylisticriticism.A reader'sresponse o thefifth

word

n

a line

or

sentence

s to a

large

extent he

product

f his

responses

to

words

one, two,

three,

nd

four.

And

by

response,

intendmore

than

the

range

of

feelings

what

Wimsatt

nd

Beardsley

all the

purely

f-

fective

eports ).

The

category

f

response

ncludes

any

and

all

of

the

activities

rovoked

by

a

string

f words:

the

projection

f

syntactical

and/or

lexical

probabilities;

their

subsequent

occurrence

or non-oc-

currence;

attitudes owards

persons,

r

things,

r ideas

referred

o;

the

reversal

r

questioning

f those

attitudes;

nd much

more.

Obviously,

this mposesa greatburdenon the analystwho in his observations n

any

one

moment

n

the

reading

experience

must take

into account

all

that

has

happened

(in

the

reader's

mind)

at

previous

moments,

ach

of which was in

its turn

subject

to

the

accumulating

pressures

f

its

predecessors.

He

mustalso

take

nto account

nfluences nd

pressures

pre-dating

he actual

reading

experience-questions

of

genre,

history,

etc.-questions

we shall

consider

ater.)

All of this

s

included

in

the

phrase

in time.

The basis of

the method

s a consideration

f the

temporal

flow

of

the

reading

experience,

nd

it is assumed

that

the

readerresponds n terms fthatflowand not to thewhole utterance.

That

is,

in

an utterance

of

any length,

here s

a

point

at which

the

reader

has taken

n

only

the first

word,

and then

the

second,

and then

the

third,

nd so

on,

and the

report

f

what

happens

to the reader

s

always

a

report

f what has

happened

to that

point.

(The

report

n-

cludes the

reader's set

toward future

experiences,

but

not those ex-

periences.)

The

importance

f this

principle

s

illustrated

when

we reverse he

first

wo

clauses of the

Judas

sentence:

There is no

certainty

hat

Judasperished yhanginghimself. Here the statusof the assertions

never

n

doubt

because

the reader

knows

from

he

beginning

hat

t

is

doubtful;

he is

given

a

perspective

romwhich

to

view

the

statement

and that

perspective

s

confirmed ather han

challenged

by

what

fol-

lows;

even the confusion

f

pronouns

n the

second

part

of the

sen-

tencewill not be

disturbing

o

him,

because

it can

easily

be

placed

in

the

context f

his initial

response.

There

is

no

difference

n these

two

sen-

tences

n

the nformation

onveyed

or

not

conveyed),

or

in

the

exical

and

syntactical

omponents,3

nly

n

the

way

these

are

received.

But

thatonedifference akes ll the difference-betweenn uncomfortable,

unsettling

xperience

n which he

gradual

dimming

f a fact s attended

by

a

failure

n

perception,

nd

a

wholly elf-satisfying

ne in which

an

3

Of

course,

That

is no

longer

read

as the fact

that,

but

this is

because the

order

of the clauses

has resulted n

the

ruling

out

of that

possibility.


8/21/2019 468593 Stanley Fish

7/41

128 NEW

LITERARY

HISTORY

uncertainty

s

comfortably

ertain,

nd

the

reader's onfidence

n

his

own

powers

emains

nshaken,

ecause

he

s

always

n

control.

t

is,

insist,differencenmeaning.

The

results

I

will

ater

all

them

dvantages)

f

this

method re

fairly,

hough

ot

exhaustively,

epresented

n

my

two

examples.

Es-

sentially

hat

the

method

oes

s slow down

the

reading xperience

so

that events ne does

not

notice

n

normal

ime,

utwhich

o oc-

cur,

are

brought

efore ur

analytical

ttentions.t is as if a slow

motion amerawith n

automatic

top

ction

ffect ere

ecording

ur

linguistic xperiences

nd

presenting

hem to us

for

viewing.

Of

course he

value

of

uch

procedure

s

predicated

n

the

dea of

mean-

ingas an event,omethinghat s happeningetween he words nd

in the

reader's

mind,

omething

otvisible o

the

naked

ye,

ut

which

can

be made visible

or

at

least

palpable)

by

the

regular

ntroduction

of a

searching

uestion

what

does this

do?).

It is

more

usual

to

assume

hat

meaning

s

a functionf the

utterance,

nd

to

equate

t

with

he nformation

iven

the message)

or

the

attitude

xpressed.

That

is,

the

components

f

an utterance

re

considered

ither

n

rela-

tion o each

other

r

to a

state

f

affairs

n

theoutside

world,

r

to

the

state

fmind

fthe

peaker-author.

n

any

nd all

of

these

ariations,

meanings located presumedobe imbedded) n theutterance,nd

the

apprehension

f

meaning

s

an act

of

extraction.4

n

short,

here

is little

ense f

process

nd even ess

f

the

reader's

ctualizing

artici-

pation

n that

rocess.

This

concentration

n theverbal

bject

s

a

thing

n

tself,

nd

as

a

repository

f

meaning

as

many

onsequences,

heoretical

nd

practi-

cal. First

f

all,

t creates

whole

lass

of

utterances,

hich

because

of

their

lleged

ransparency,

re

declared

o

be

uninteresting

s

ob-

jects

of

analysis.

entences

r

fragments

f sentences

hat

mmediately

makesense a deeply evealinghrase f onethinksbout t) are

examples

f

ordinaryanguage;

hey

reneutralnd

tyleless

tatements,

simply

eferring,

r

simply

eporting.

ut the

application

o such

utterances

f

the

question

what does it

do?

(which

assumes

hat

something

s

always appening)

eveals

hat

great

eal s

going

n

n

their

production

nd

comprehension

every

inguistic

xperience

s

af-

fecting

nd

pressuring)

lthough

most f t s

going

n so close

up,

at

such

basic,

preconscious

evelof

experience,

hatwe tend o

over-

look

t. Thus

the

utterance

written

r

spoken)

theres

a

chair

s

at

onceunderstoods thereportitherfan existingtate f affairsrof

an

act

of

perception

I

see a

chair).

In either

rame f

reference,

t

4

This is

not

true

of

the Oxford

school

of

ordinary

language

philosophers

(Austin,

Grice,

Searle)

who

discuss

meaning

in terms

f

hearer-speaker

elationships

and

intention-response

onventions,

.e.,

situational

meaning.


8/21/2019 468593 Stanley Fish

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LITERATURE IN THE READER:

AFFECTIVE STYLISTICS

129

makes

mmediate

ense. To

my

mind,

however,

hat s

interesting

about the

utterance

s

the sub rosa

message

t

puts

out

by

virtue

f

itseasycomprehensibility.ecause t gives nformationirectlynd

simply,

t

asserts

silently,

ut

effectively)

he

givability ,irectly

nd

simply,

f

nformation;

nd t

s

thus

s

extension

f he

rdering

pera-

tion

we

perform

n

experience

hen

ever

t

is

filtered

hrough

ur

temporal-spatial

onsciousness.n

short

t makes

ense,

n

exactly

he

way

we make

i.e.,

manufacture)

ense

f

whatever,

f

anything,

xists

outside

s;

and

by

making

asy

ense

t tells

s

that ense an be

easily

made

and thatwe

are

capable

of

easily

making

t.

A

whole

document

consisting

f such

utterances-a

hemistry

ext

r a

telephone

ook-

willbetellings that llthe ime; ndthat, ather han nyreportable

content,

ill

be its

meaning.

uch

anguage

an be

called

ordinary

only

ecause t

confirmsnd

reflects

ur

ordinary

nderstanding

f

the

world nd our

position

n

it;

but for

precisely

hat

reason t

is

extra-

ordinary

unless

we

accept

naive

epistemology

hich

grants

s un-

mediated ccess

o

reality)

nd

to

eave

t

unanalyzed

s to

risk

missing

much

f

what

happens-to

us

and

through

s-when we

readand

(or

so we

think)

nderstand.

In

short,

he

problem

s

simply

hat

most

methods

f

nalysis

perate

at sohigh level fabstractionhat hebasicdataofthemeaningx-

perience

s

slighted

nd/or

bscured.

n the rea of

pecifically

iterary

studies,

he

effects

f a naive

theory

f

utterance

meaning

nd

of

its

attendant

ssumption

f

ordinary

anguage

can

be

seen

in

what

is

acknowledged

o

be

the

orry

tate f

thecriticism

f

the

novel nd

of

prose

n

general.

This

s

usually

xplained

with eference

o

a distinc-

tion

between

rose

nd

poetry,

hich

s

actually

distinctionetween

ordinary

anguage

nd

poetic

anguage.

Poetry,

t is

asserted,

s

char-

acterized

y

a

high

ncidence

f

deviance

rom

ormal

yntactical

nd

lexical abits.tthereforeffershe nalyst-criticgreatmany ointsf

departure.

rose,

n the ther and

except

or

Baroque

ccentrics

ike

Thomas

Browne nd

James

Joyce)

s, well,

ust

prose,

nd

just

there.

It

is

this

helplessness

efore

ll

but

themost

pectacular

ffects

hat

would

remedy;

lthough

n

one

way

the

two

examples

ithwhich

his

essay

egan

were

badly

hosen,

ince

hey

were

nalyses

f utterances

thatare

obviously

nd

problematically

eviant.

This,

of

course,

was

a

ploy

o

gain

your

ttention.

ssuming

hat now

have

t,

et

me

n-

sist

that

the

method

hows

o

best

advantage

when

t is

applied

to

unpromising aterial.Consider orexample his entenceactually

part

of a

sentence)

rom

ater's

Conclusion

o The

Renaissance,

which,

while t

s

hardly

he tuff

f

everyday

onversation,

oes

not,

t

first

ight,

fford

much

cope

for

he

ritic's

nalytical

kill:

That clear

perpetual

utline

f face and limb

s

but an

image

of ours.


8/21/2019 468593 Stanley Fish

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130

NEW LITERARY

HISTORY

What can one

say

about a sentence ike this? The

analyst

of

style

would,

I

fear,

find

t

distressingly

traightforward

nd

non-deviant,

simple declarativeof the form X is Y. And if he were by chance

drawn

to

it,

he

would not be

likely

o

pay

very

much attention

o

the

firstword- That. It is

simply

here. But

of

course

t is not

simply

there;

t

is

actively

here,

oing something,

nd

what

that

something

s

can

be discovered

y asking

he

question

what does t

do? The answer

is

obvious,

right

here

n

front

f

our

noses,

lthough

we

may

not

see

it

untilwe ask the

question.

That

is

a

demonstrative,

word

that

points

out,

and

as

one takes t

in,

a sense

of its

referent

yet

unidentified)

s

established. Whatever that

is,

t s

outside,

t a distance

from he

ob-

server-reader;t is pointable to (pointing s what theword that

does),

something

f substance and

solidity.

In

terms

of

the

reader's

response,

that

generates

n

expectation

hat

mpels

him

forward,

he

expectation

f

finding

ut

what

that is. The word and its

effect re

the basic data of the

meaning

experience

nd

they

will

direct

our

de-

scription

f that

experience

ecause

they

direct

he reader.

The

adjective

clear

works

n

two

ways;

it

promises

he reader

that when

that

appears,

he will

be able

to

see

it

easily,

nd,

converse-

ly,

that

it

can be

easily

seen.

Perpetual

stabilizes

he

visibility

f

that evenbeforet s seen and outline gives tpotential orm,while

at

the ame

time

raising

question.

That

question-outline

of

what?-

is

obligingly

nswered

by

the

phrase

of

face and

limb,

which,

n

ef-

fect,

ills he outline

n.

By

the time

the reader reaches

the declarative

verb is -which

sets

the

seal

on the

objectivereality

f what has

pre-

ceded

it-he

is

fully

nd

securely

riented

n

a world

of

perfectly

is-

cerned

objects

and

perfectly

iscerning

bservers,

f whom

he is one.

But then

the sentence

urns

n

the

reader,

nd takes

away

the world

t

has

itself reated.

With

but

the

easy progress

hrough

he sentence

is impeded (it is a splitsecondbeforeone realizes that but has the

force of

only )

;

the

declarative

force of is

is

weakened

and

the

status

of the

firmly

rawn

outline he

reader has been

pressured

o ac-

cept

is

suddenly

uncertain;

image

resolves

that

uncertainty,

ut

in

the direction

f

insubstantiality;

nd the now blurredform

disap-

pears

altogether

when the

phrase

of

ours

collapses

the

distinction

between

he reader

nd that

which s

(or

was)

without

Pater's

own

word).

Now

you

see

it

(that),

now

you

don't. Pater

giveth

nd

Pater

taketh

away.

(Again

this

description

f the reader's

experience

s

an analysisof the sentence'smeaningand if you were to ask, but,

what does

it mean?

I would

simply epeat

the

description.)

What is true

of

this entence

s

true,

believe,

of

much

of what

we

hold ourselves

responsible

for

as

criticsand teachers of literature.

There is

more to

it,

that

s,

to

its

experience,

han

meets

he casual

eye.


8/21/2019 468593 Stanley Fish

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LITERATURE IN THE READER: AFFECTIVE

STYLISTICS

131

What

is

required

hen

s

a

method,

machine

f

you

will,

which

n its

operation

makes

observable,

r

at

least

accessible,

what

goes

on below

the level ofself-consciousesponse. Everyonewould admitthat some-

thing

funny happens

n

the

Judas

sentence

from

Browne's

Religio

Medici

and that there

s

a

difficulty

uilt into the

reading

and under-

standing

of the

ine

from

Paradise

Lost;

but

there s a

tendency

o as-

sume that the Pater sentence

s

a

simple

assertion

whatever

that

s).

It

is of

course,

nothing

f

the

kind.

In fact t

is

not

an assertion

t

all,

although the

promise

f)

an

assertions one

of

ts

components.

t

is

an

experience;

t

occurs;

it does

something;

t makes us

do

something.

Indeed,

I

would

go

so far as to

say,

n direct ontradiction

f

Wimsatt-

Beardsley,hatwhat tdoes s what tmeans.

The

Logic

and Structure of

Response

II.

What

I

am

suggesting

s that

there

s no direct

relationship

etween

the

meaning

of

a sentence

(paragraph,

novel,

poem)

and what its

words

mean.

Or,

to

put

the matter ess

provocatively,

he nformation

an

utterance

ives,

ts

message,

s a

constituent

f,

but

certainly

ot

to

be

identified

with,

ts

meaning.

It is the

experience

f an utterance-

all

of

it and

not

anything

hat could be

said about

it,

includingany-

thing

could

say--that

s

ts

meaning.

It

follows,

hen,

hat t is

impossible

o mean the same

thing

n two

(or

more)

different

ays,

although

we tend to

think hat

it

happens

all the

time. We

do this

by

substituting

or our

immediate

inguistic

experience

n

interpretation

r abstraction f

it,

in which it is

in-

evitably ompromised.

We contrive

o

forget

what has

happened

to us

in our ifewith anguage,removing urselves s faras possiblefrom he

linguistic

vent before

making

a statement

bout

it.

Thus

we

say,

for

example,

that

the book

of the

father and

the

father's

book

mean

the same

thing, forgetting

hat

father and book

occupy

different

ositions

of

emphasis

in

our

different

xperiences;

and as

we

progress

n

this

forgetting,

e become

capable

of

believing

hat

sen-

tences

s

differents these

re

equivalent

n

meaning:

This fact

s

concealed

by

the

nfluence

f

anguage,

moulded

by

science,

which oistsn usexactconcepts

s

though hey epresented

he

mmediate

deliverances

f

experience.

A. N. Whitehead

And

ifwe continue o

dwell

n

thought

n this

world,

not of

objects

n

the

olidity

ithwhich

anguage

nvests

hem,

ut of

mpressions,

nstable,


8/21/2019 468593 Stanley Fish

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132

NEW

LITERARY

HISTORY

flickering,

nconsistent,

hich

burn

and are

extinguished

ith our

con-

sciousness

f

them,

t

contractstill

urther.

Walter

Pater

It

is

(literally)

tempting

o

say

that these

sentences

make the same

point:

that

anguage

which

pretends

o

precision perates

to

obscure

the

flux

and

disorder f

actual

experience.

And of

course

they

do,

if

one

considers hem

t

a

high

enough

evel

of

generality.

But

as individ-

ual

experiences

hrough

which

a

reader

ives,

they

re not

alike

at

all,

and

neither, herefore,

re

their

meanings.

To

take the

Whitehead

entence

irst,

t

simply

oesn'tmean what

it

says; for s thereadermovesthrought,he experiences hestability f

the world

whose existence

t

supposedly

enies.

The

word

fact itself

makes

an

exact

concept

out

of

the dea of

nexactness;

nd

by

referring

backward to find ts

referent- the

radically

untidy

ll-adjusted

har-

acter

of...

experience -the

reader

performs

he characteristic

ction

required

of him

by

this

entence,

he

fixing

f

things

n

their

place.

There is

nothing ntidy

ither

n the

sentence

r

in

our

experience

f

it.

Each clause is

logically

relatedto its

predecessors

nd

prepares

he

way

for what

follows;

and

since

our active

attention

s

required

only

at thepoints frelation, hesentence sdividedbyusintoa succession f

discrete

reas,

each of which s dominated

by

the

anguage

of

certainty.

Even the

phrase

as

though

they

represented

alls

nto

this

category,

since its

stress

falls on

they

represented

which

then thrusts s

for-

ward to the

waiting

deliverances f

experience.

In

short,

he sen-

tence,

n

its action

upon

us,

declares

the

tidy

well-ordered haracter

f

actual

experience,

nd that

s ts

meaning.

At

first

he Pater sentence s

self-subverting

n the

same

way.

The

least

forcefulword

in

its first

wo

clauses is

not,

which is

literally

overwhelmed ythewordsthat urroundt- world, objects, solid-

ity, language ;

and

by

the timethe readerreaches he

but

in

but

of

mpressions,

e findshimself

nhabiting

dwelling n)

a

world

of

fixed and

solid

objects.

It is of course a world

made

up

of

words,

constructed

n

large

part by

the reader himself

s he

performs ram-

matical

actions

which

reinforce he

stability

f its

phenomena. By

re-

ferring

ackwards from

them

to

objects,

the reader accords

ob-

jects

a

place

in the

sentence

whatever

can

be referred ack

to

must

be

somewhere)

and in his

mind.

In the second half of the

sentence,

however, his ame world s unbuilt. There is stilla backward

depen-

dence to the

readingexperience,

ut

the

point

of

reference

s

the word

impressions ;

nd the eries

which

follows

t- unstable,

flickering,

'inconsistent -serves

nly

o accentuate ts

nstability.

ike

Whitehead,

Pater

perpetrates

he

verydeception

he is

warning against;

but

this s


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LITERATURE

IN

THE

READER:

AFFECTIVE

STYLISTICS

133

only

one

part

of

his

strategy.

The other s to break down

(extinguish)

the

coherenceof

the

illusion

he has

created.

Each successive

tage

of

thesentence s less exact (in Whitehead'sterms)than itspredecessors,

because

at

each successive

tage

the reader

s

given

ess

and

less to

hold

on

to;

and when

the

corporeality

f this

world

has

wasted

away

to

an it

( it

contracts

till

further ),

he is

left

with

nothing

t

all.

One could

say,

suppose,

hatat

the east

these wo

sentences

esture

toward

the same

insight;

but even this

minimal statement

makes

me

uneasy,

because

insight

s

anotherword that

mplies

there

t

is,

I've

got

it. And this s

exactly

he difference etween the

two

sentences:

Whitehead

lets

you

get

it

( the

neat, trim,

tidy,

exact

world ),

while Pater gives you the experienceof having it meltunder your

feet.

It

is

only

when one

steps

back

from

the sentences

hat

they

are

in

any

way

equivalent;

and

stepping

ack

is what

an

analysis

n

terms

of

doing

and

happenings

does

not allow.

The

analysis

of

the Pater sentence llustrates

notherfeatureof the

method,

ts

independence

of

linguistic

ogic.

If

a casual reader

were

asked

to

point

out the

most

important

word

in

the second clause-

not of

objects

n

the

solidity

with which

anguage

invests

hem -he

would

probably

answer

not,

because as a

logical

marker not

controls verythinghat follows t. But as one component n an ex-

perience,

t is

hardly ontrolling

t

all;

for

as the

clause

unfolds,

not

has less

and

less

a claim on our attention nd

memories;

working gainst

it,

and

finally

verwhelming

t,

as we

saw,

is

an

unbroken uccession

f

more

forcefulwords.

My

point

of course

s

that

n an

analysis

of the

sentence

s a

thing

n

itself,

onsisting

f

words

arranged

n

syntacto-

logical relationships,

not would

figure

rominently,

hile in

an

ex-

periential

nalysis

t is noted

chiefly

or ts weakness.

The

case

is

even clearer

and

perhaps

more

interesting

n this sen-

tencefrom neofDonne's sermons:

And

therefore,

s

the

mysteries

f our

religions

re

not

the

objects

of

our

reason,

ut

by

faithwe

rest

n

God's

decree

nd

purpose it

is

so,

O

God,

because

t

s

thy

will

t

should

be

so)

So

God's

decrees

re ever

to

be

considered

n

the

manifestation

hereof.

Here the

not -again logically

ontrolling-is

subverted

y

the

very

construction

n

which

t s

mbedded;

for

hat

construction,

nobtrusive-

ly,

but nonethless

ffectively,ressures

he reader to

perform xactlythose mental

operations

whose

propriety

hestatement f the sentence

-what it is

saying-is challenging.

That

is,

a

paraphrase

of the

ma-

terialbefore he

parenthesismight

ead- Matters of faith

nd

religion

are not

the

objects

of

our

reason ;

but the

simple

act of

taking

n the

words And therefore

nvolves

s

unavoidably

n

reasoning

bout mat-


8/21/2019 468593 Stanley Fish

13/41

134

NEW ITERARY

ISTORY

ters

f

faith nd

religion;

n fact

o

strong

s

the

pull

of

thesewords

hat

our

primary esponse

o this

part

of the

sentence s

one of

anticipation;

we are waitingfora so clause to completethe logicallybased se-

quence

begun by

And

therefore

s.

But

when that

so

appears,

t

is

not at all what we had

expected,

or t s

the so of divinefiat-it is so

O

God because it is

thy

will

it should be so-of

a

causality

more real

than

any

that can be

observed

n

nature or described

n a natural

(human)

language.

The

speaker,

however,

ompletes

is

explaining

and

organizing

statement

s

if its silent

claim

to be

a

window

on

reality

were still

unquestioned.

As

a

result he reader

s

alerted

o

the

inadequacy

of

the

very

process

n

which he

is

(through

the

syntax)

involved,and at the same time he accepts the necessity, or limited

human

beings,

of

proceeding

within

he now discredited

ssumptions

ofthat

process.

Of

course,

formalist

nalysis

f

this

entencewould

certainly

ave

discovered

the tension

between the two

so's,

one a

synonym

or

therefore,

he other horthand

or so be

it,

and

might

ven have

gone

on

to

suggest

hat the

relationship

etween

them

s

a mirror f the

re-

lationship

between

the

mysteries

f faith nd

the

operations

f reason.

I

doubt, however,

hat a formalist

nalysis

would

have

brought

us

to

thepointwherewe could see thesentence, nd themode ofdiscourse

it

represents,

s

a

self-deflating

oke ( thereof

mocks

therefore ),

to

which the

reader

responds

nd

of

whichhe

is

a

victim.

In

short,

nd

to

repeat

myself,

o consider

he

utterances

part

from he

consciousness

receiving

t is

to

risk

missing great

deal of

what

is

going

on.

It is a

risk

which

analysis

n

terms of

doings

and

happenings

works

to

minimize.

Another

dvantage

of the method s its

ability

o deal

with

entences

(and works)

that

don't

mean

anything,

n

the sense of not

makingsense.

Literature,

t is oftenremarked

either

n

praise

or with con-

tempt)

is

largely

made

up

of

such utterances.

It

is an

interesting

om-

mentboth

on

Dylan

Thomas

and the

proponents

f

a

deviation

heory

of

poetic

language

that

their

examples

so

often

are taken from

his

work.)

In

an

experiential

analysis,

the

sharp

distinction

etween

sense and

nonsense,

with the attendant value

judgments

and

the

talk

about truth

ontent,

s

blurred,

because the

place

where sense

is

made

or

not

made

is

the reader's mind rather han the

printedpage

or the space betweenthe covers of a book. For an example,I turn

once

again,

and forthe last

time,

to Pater.

This

at

leastof

flame-like,

ur life

has,

that t is but the

concurrence,

5

I borrow this

phrase

from

P.

W.

Bridgman,

The

Way Things

Are.


8/21/2019 468593 Stanley Fish

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LITERATURE IN

THE

READER: AFFECTIVE STYLISTICS

135

renewed

from

moment

o

moment,

f

forces

arting

ooner

or

later

on

theirways.

This

sentence

deliberately

rustrates he reader's natural desire

to

organize

the

particulars

t offers.

One

can

see

for

nstance

how

dif-

ferent ts

experience

would be if

concurrences f forces were sub-

stituted or

concurrence,

enewed rom

moment o

moment,

f forces.

The

one

allows and

encourages

he formation f

a

physical

mage

which

has a

spatial

reality;

the mind

imagines

(pictures)

separate

and

dis-

tinctforces

onverging,

n an

orderly

ashion,

n

a

centerwhere

they

form

new,

but

still

recognizable

nd

managable

(in

a

mental

sense),

force;the otherdeterminedlyrevents hat image fromforming. e-

fore the

reader

can

respond fully

o

concurrence,

renewed

stops

him

by making

the

temporal

status

of

the

motion unclear. Has the

concurrence

lready

taken

place?

Is

it

taking place

now?

Although

frommoment

o moment answersthese

questions,

t does

so at the

expense

of the

assumptions

ehind

them;

the

phrase

eaves no

time for

anything

o

formal

nd chartable s a

process.

For

a

moment,

t

of

forces,

here s a

coming together;

but

in

the

next

moment,

he

moment when

the

reader takes

in

parting,

they

separate.

Or

do

they? sooner or later upsetsthis new attempt o findpatternand

direction

n

our

life

and

the

reader s

once more

disoriented,

patial-

ly

and

temporally.

The final deterrent o order s the

plural

ways,

which

prevents

he

mind's

eye

from

ravelling

own a

singlepath

and

insistson the

haphazardness

and randomness

of

whatever

t is that

happens

ooner r

ater.

Of

coursethis

reading

of

the

sentence

that

is,

of its

effects)

gnores

its status

s

a

logical

utterance.

Concurrence,

enewed

frommoment

to

moment,

f

forces s

meaningless

s a statement

orresponding

o

a

state of affairs n the real world; but its refusalto mean in that

discursive

way

creates

he

experience

hat s

its

meaning;

and an

analy-

sis

of

that

experience

rather

than of

logical

content s able

to

make

sense

of one

kind-experiential

ense-out

of nonsense.

A

similar

and

saving) operation

can

be

performed

n units

arger

than

the sentence.

One

of

Plato's

more

problematical

ialogues

s

the

Phaedrus,

n

part

because

its

final assertion- no

work

.

.

. has

ever

been

written

r

recited hat

s

worthy

f serious attention -seems

to

be

contradicted

y

its

very

existence.

This embarrasment has

been

the cause of a

great

many

articles,

ftenentitled The

Unity

of the

Phaedrus,

in

which the

offending

ection s somehow

accounted

for,

usually

by explaining

t

away.

What

these tudies

ttempt

o discover

s

the nternal

nity

f the

Phaedrus,

ts coherence

s a self-contained

rti-

fact;

but

if we look

for the coherenceof

the

dialogue

in the reader's


8/21/2019 468593 Stanley Fish

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136

NEW LITERARY

HISTORY

experience

f

it rather

han n

its

formal

tructure,

he

inconsistency

is

less a

problem

to be

solved

than

something

hat

happens,

a fact of

response;and as a fact of response t is thekeyto theway thework

works.

Rather than a

single

sustained

argument,

he Phaedrus

is

a

series

of

discrete

onversations

r

seminars,

ach

with

ts

own

carefully

posed

question,

nsuing

discussion

nd

firmly

rawn

conclusion;

but so

arranged

that to enter nto

the

spirit

and

assumptions

f

any

one

of

these

self-enclosed nits

s

implicitly

o

reject

the

spirit

and

assump-

tions

of

the unit

mmediately

receding.

This is a

pattern

which can be

clearly

llustrated

y

the

relationship

etween he

speech

of

Lysias

and

the first

peech

delivered

by

Socrates.

Lysias'

speech

is

criticized or

notconformingo the definition fa good discourse: everydiscourse,

like

a

living

creature,

hould be so

put together

hat

it

has

its

own

body

and

lacks

neither

ead

nor

feet,

middle nor

extremities,

ll com-

posed

in

such a

way

that

they

uit

both

each

other

and the

whole. 6

Socrates,

n

fact,

s

quite

careful

to rule out

any

other

standard

of

judgment:

it is the

arrangement

rather

than the invention

or

relevance that concerns

him

as

a critic.

Subsequently,

ocrates

own effort

n the

same theme s criticized or

ts

mpiety,

n

impiety,

moreover,

hat

is

compounded by

its

effectiveness

s

a

piece

of rhe-

toric. In otherwords,Lysias' speech s bad because itis not well put

together

nd

Socrates'

speech

s bad because it

is

well

put

together.

Although

neither

Socrates nor

Phaedrus

acknowledges

the

con-

tradiction,

he

reader,

who

has fallen

n

(perhaps

involuntarily)

with

thestandards f

udgment

stablished

y

the

philosopher

imself,

s

cer-

tainly

onfronted ith

t,

and asked

implicitly

o

do

something

with t.

What he

does

(or

should

do)

is

realize that

in

the condemnation f

Socrates'

speech

a new standard

(of

impiety)

has been

introduced,

one

that invalidatesthe

very

basis on

which

the

discussion

and

his

reading experience) had hitherto een preceding. At that moment,

this

early

section

of the

dialogue

will

have

achieved

its true

purpose,

which

is,

paradoxically,

o

bring

the reader to

the

point

where

he

is

no

longer

nterested

n

the issues t

treats;

no

longer

nterested

ecause

he has come

to

see

thatthe real ssues

xist t a

higher

evel of

generality.

Thus,

in

a

way peculiar

to

dialectical form

nd

experience,

his

pace

of

prose

and

argument

will have been the

vehicle of

its own

abandon-

ment.

Nor is

that

by any

means the end of

the

matter. This

pattern,

n

whichthe reader s first

ncouraged

to entertain

ssumptions

e

prob-

ably

already

holds

and

then is later

forced to

re-examine

nd

dis-

credit

hose ame

assumptions,

s

repeated

gain

and

again.

In

the

mid-

6 Ed.

W.

C.

Helmbold

and

W.

G.

Rabinowitz

(New

York,

1956), p.

53.


8/21/2019 468593 Stanley Fish

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LITERATURE IN

THE

READER: AFFECTIVE STYLISTICS

137

dle

section

of

the

dialogue,

the two friends

gree

to

explore

the

sub-

ject

of

good

and bad

writing;

and Socrates

argues against

the

sophistposition hat an orator may neglectwhat is really good . . .

for t is from

what seems to be true that

persuasion

comes,

not

from

the

real

truth

p.

46).

It

is

essential,

ounters

ocrates,

for

a

com-

petent

speaker

to know the truth

bout all

things

nd

subjects,

for

unless he

does,

and

here the

reader

anticipates

ome

kind of

equation

between

good

writing

nd a

concernfor he truth-he will

be

unable

to

deceive

( When

a man sets out

to

deceive someone

else without

being

taken in

himself,

e

must

accurately

grasp

the

similarity

nd

dissimi-

larity

of the

facts ).

While art

and truth

have

been

joined

in one

context-the ruthlessly ractical contextof manipulativerhetoric-a

wedge

has been drivenbetween them

in

another-the

moral context

assumed at

the

beginning

f

the

discussion.

To

the earlier

nsight

hat

a well-made

speech

is not

necessarily

true

speech

(in

the moral

sense),

the reader must now add the further

and extending)

nsight

that well-madeness s

likely

o

be a

weapon

in

the arsenal

of Truth's

enemies.

So

that

what was at

first tandardof

udgment

o

which

Soc-

rates,

Phaedrus

and the

reader

repaired,

s

now seen

to be

positively

deleterious o the

higher

tandard now

only graduallyemerging

rom

thedialogue.

The

important

word in

my

last sentence s

seen ;

for

it

suggests

that what

is

being

processed

by

the Phaedrus

is not an

argument

r a

proposition,

ut

a vision. As

an

argument,

n

fact,

he

dialogue

makes

no

sense,

since Socrates

is

continually

eaching

conclusionswhich

he

subsequently,

nd

without

omment,

bandons.

But

as an

attempt

o

refine

ts

reader's

vision

t

makes a

great

deal

of

sense;

for then the

contradictions,

he moments

of

blurring,

become

invitations

o ex-

amine

closely

remises

oo

easily

cquiesced

n. The readerwho

accepts

this invitationwill find,on retracinghis steps,that statements nd

phrases

which had

seemed

unexceptionable

re

now

suspect

and

du-

bious;

and

that ines of

reasoning

which

had seemed

proper

nd

to

the

point

are

now

disastrously

arrow.

Of course

they-phrases,

state-

ments,

premises

and conclusions-haven't

changed

(as

Socrates

re-

marks

ater,

written

words

.

go

on

telling

you

the same

thing

over

and

over ),

the reader

has,

and with

each

change

he is able

to

dis-

pense

with whatever ection

of

the

dialogue

he has been

reading,

be-

cause

he has

passed

beyond

the level

of

perception

t

respresents.

To read the

Phaedrus,

then,

s to use it

up;

for the value of

any

point

n

it is that

t

gets

you

(not

any

sustained

rgument)

to the next

point,

which s

not so

much

a

point

(in logical-demonstrative

erms)

as

a

level

of

insight.

t is thusa

self-consuming

rtifact,

mimetic

nact-

ment n the reader's

experience

of the Platonic ladder in which each


8/21/2019 468593 Stanley Fish

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138

NEW LITERARY

HISTORY

rung,

s

it

is

negotiated,

s

kicked

away.

The final

rung,

he

intuition

which

stands

(or,

more

properly,

n

which the reader

stands),

be-

cause it is thelast, s of course the rejectionof written rtifacts, re-

jection

that far

from

ontradicting

hat has

preceded,

s

an

exact de-

scription

f

what the

reader,

n

his

repeated

abandoning

of

successive

stages

n

the

argument,

as

been

doing.

What

was

problematical

ense

in

the structure

f

a self-enclosed

rgument,

makes

perfect

ense

n the

structure

f

the

reader's

xperience.

The Phaedrus s a radical criticism f the dea of internal oherence

from

a

moral

point

of

view;

by

identifying

he

appeal

of

well-put-

together

rtifacts iththe

sense

of

order

n the

perceiving

i.e.,

receiv-

ing) mind, tprovides strong rgument or hebanishing f thegood

poet

who is

potentially

he

good

deceiver.

We can

put

aside the

moral

issue and still

profit

rom

he

dialogue;

for

f

the

laws

of

beginning,

middle,

and end

are laws of

psychology

ather

han form

or

truth),

a

criticism

hich has as its

focus

the

structural

ntegrity

f the artifact s

obviously

misdirected.

It

is

the

experience

f

works,

not

worksthat

have

beginnings,

middles,

nd

ends.)

A new look

at

the

question

may

result

n

the rehabilitation f

works

ike

The

Faerie

Queene

which

have

been

criticized

because their

poetic

worlds lack

unity

and

consis-

tency. And a new look at thequestionmayresult lso in a more ac-

curate account

of

workswhose formal

features re so

prominent

hat

the critic

proceedsdirectly

rom

hemto

a

statement f

meaning

with-

out

bothering

o

ask whether

heir

high

visibility

as

any

direct rela-

tionship

o

their

operation

n the

reader's

experience.

This

analysis

f

the Phaedrus

lllustrates,

ot

incidentally,

he

ability

of the method

to handle units

arger

than the

sentence.

Whatever

he

size of

the

unit,

he focus

of

the method

remains he

reader's

xperience

of

it,

and the mechanism f the method

s

the

magic question,

what

does this do?

Answering

t of course s more difficulthan it

would

be for a

single

entence. More

variables

creep

n,

more

respon-

ses

and

more

different inds of

responses

have to

be

kept

track

of;

there re

more contextswhich

regulate

nd

modulate he

temporal

low

of the

reading

experience.

Some of

these

problems

will

be considered

below.

For the

present

et

me

say

that

have

usually

foundthat

what

might

e

called the basic

experience

f

a work

do

not

read basic

mean-

ing)

occurs

at

every

evel. As an

example,

we

might

onsider,

riefly,

The

Pilgrim'srogress.

At one

point

n

Bunyan's prose

epic,

Christian

sks

a

question

and

receives

n

answer:

7

See

Paul

Alpers,

The

Poetry of

The Faerie

Queene (Princeton,

1967),

where

exactly

this

point

is

made.


8/21/2019 468593 Stanley Fish

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LITERATURE IN

THE

READER: AFFECTIVE

STYLISTICS

139

Chr. Is this he

way

to

the

Celestial

City?

Shep. You are ust n yourway.

The

question

s asked in

the

contextof certain

ssumptions

bout

the

world,

the

stability

f

objects

n

it,

the

possibility

f

knowing,

n

terms

of

measurable

distances nd

locatable

places,

where

you

are;

but the

answer while it

is

perfectly

atisfactory

ithin

that assumed

context,

also

challenges

t, or,

to

be more

precise,

forces he reader to

challenge

it

by

forcing

im to

respond

to the

pun

on the word

just.

The

in-

escapability

f the

pun

reflects

ackward on

the

question

nd the

world

view

it

supports;

and it

gestures

oward another

world

view

in

which

spatial configurationsave moral and innermeanings, nd being n the

way

is

independent

f

the

way

you happen

to

be in. That

is,

if

Chris-

tian

s

to

be

truly

n

the

way,

the

way

must

first e

in

him,

and thenhe

will

be

in

it,

no matter

where-in

what

merely hysical

way-he

is.

All

of

this

s

meant,

hat

s

experienced,

n the reader's

ncounterwith

just

which s

a comment ot

only

n

Christian

or

sking

he

question,

but on

the reader for

aking

t

seriously,

hat

s,

simply.

What has

hap-

pened

to the

reader

n

this

brief

pace

is the

basic

experience

f The

Pilgrim's

Progress. Again

and

again

he

settles

nto

temporal-spatial

forms fthought nly obe brought p shortwhentheyproveunable to

contain

the

insights

f

Christian aith. The

many

evels

on

which

this

basic

experience

occurs

would be the

substance

of

a

full

reading

of

The

Pilgrim'sProgress,

omething

he

world

will soon

have,

whether

it

wants t or

not.

The

method, hen,

s

applicable

to

larger

units

and

its chiefcharac-

teristics

emain

he

same:

(I)

it refuses

o

answer

or

even ask

the

ques-

tion,

what is

this

work

about;

(2)

it

yields

an

analysis

not

of

formal

features,

ut

of

the

developing responses

f the reader

in

relationto

the wordsas they ucceedone another n time; (3) the resultwill be a

description

f

the structure

f

response

which

may

have

an

oblique

or

even

(as

in

the

case

of The

Pilgrim's

Progress),

a

contrasting

elation-

ship

to

the

structure f

the

work as

a

thing

n itself.

The Affective

allacy Fallacy

III.

In the

precedingages

have

argued

hecase

for method

f

analysis

whichfocuseson the readerrather han on the

artifact,

nd in what

remains

f this

ssay

would

like

to consider ome

of

the

more obvious

objections

to that

method. The

chief

objection,

of

course,

s that

af-

fective riticism

eads

one

away

from

he

thing

tself n all its

solidity

to

the

nchoate

mpressions

f

a

variable

and variousreader.

This

argu-


8/21/2019 468593 Stanley Fish

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140

NEW LITERARY HISTORY

ment

has

several

imensions

o

it,

and

will

require

multi-directional

answer.

First, hecharge fimpressionismas beenanswered, hope,by

someof

my ample nalyses.

f

anything,

he

discriminations

equired

and

yielded

y

the

method

re

too fine or

ven hemost

nalytical

f

tastes.This

s

in

large

part

because

n

the

category

f

response

in-

clude

not

only

tears,

rickles,

nd

other

sychologicalymptoms, 8

but

all the

precise

mental

perations

nvolved

n

reading, ncluding

theformulationf

complete

houghts,

he

performing

and

regretting)

of

acts

of

udgment,

he

following

nd

making

f

logical

equences;

and also because

my

nsistencen

the cumulative

ressures

f

the

reading xperienceuts estrictionsnthepossible esponsesoa word

or a

phrase.

The

larger

bjection

emains. ven

fthe

reader's

esponses

an be

described ith

ome

precision, hy

bother

with

hem,

ince

he more

palpable objectivity

f

the

text

s

immediately

vailable

the

poem

itself,

s an

object

f

pecifically

ritical

ulgment,

ends

o

disappear ).

My

reply

o this s

simple.

The

objectivity

f he

ext

s

an

illusion,

nd

moreover,

dangerous

llusion,

ecause t is so

physically

onvincing.

The

illusions

one

of

elf-sufficiency

nd

completeness.

line

of

print

or a pageora book s so obviouslyhere-itcan be handled, hoto-

graphed,

r

put

away-that

t seems

o be

the

ole

repository

f

what-

ever

alue nd

meaning

e

associate

ith

t.

(I

wish

he

pronoun

ould

be

avoided,

ut n

a

way

t

makes

my

point.)

This s of

course heun-

spoken

ssumption

ehind

he

word content.

The line

or

page

or

book

contains-everything.

The

great

merit

from

his

oint

f

view)

of

kinetic

rt s t

Documents

468593 Stanley Fish