Literature as Exploration - Hardcover

Rosenblatt, Louise M.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0873525671 ISBN 13: 9780873525671

Publisher: Modern Language Association of America, 1995

Synopsis

Louise Rosenblatt's Literature as Exploration has influenced literary theorists and teachers of literature at all levels. This attractive trade paperback edition features a new foreword by Wayne Booth, a new preface and retrospective chapter by the author, and an updated list of suggested readings.

In Literature as Exploration, Rosenblatt presents her unique theory of literature and focuses on the immense, often untapped, potential for the study and teaching of literature in a democratic society. The author's philosophy of literature is frequently cited as the first presentation of reader-response theory, but she differs from her successors in emphasizing both the reader and the text. Her "transactional" theory of literature examines the reciprocal nature of the literary experience and explains why meaning is neither "in" the text nor "in" the reader. Each reading is "a particular event involving a particular reader and a particular text under particular circumstances." And teachers of literature, Rosenblatt argues, play a pivotal role in influencing how students perform in response to a text.

About this title

About the Author:

Louise M. Rosenblatt is professor emerita of New York University.

Review:

"This is a book for all teachers and all prospective teachers regardless of what they teach. Since its first publication in 1938 it has remained vital and significant, never giving in to time or fads."

Teaching and Learning Literature

About this edition

• Publisher: Modern Language Association of America
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0873525671
• ISBN 13: 9780873525671
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 5
• Number of pages: 341