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1

Literature has been viewed as a commercial transaction, at one end of which we have the producer (the creative writer) and at the other end the consumer (the reader). The two ends are joined by the product or commodity (the literary text). The relationship between the text and its creator has received considerable critical comment in the context of the creativity of the literary artist. However, the relationship between the literary text and its reader has not been dealt with as fully as one would have wished it to be. This is all the more important since the study of 'text production' inevitably involves the problem of 'text reception'.

In his book on the theory of literary production, Macherey (1978) has intentionally suppressed the use of the word 'creation', and has tried to replace it by the term 'production'. The study of literary production entails the problem of transmission of texts. It invites its consumers (readers) to enter into the whole transaction. The theory of literary production also presupposes a theory of communication. The ethnographic observations of Levi-Strauss (1963) were, first and foremost, intended to explain social reality (kinship system) within the framework of a general theory of communication. According to him kinship system is based on the principle and mode of 'exchange' of women between social groups, similar to the circulation of 'goods' or transmission of messages in a society.

In any society communication operates on three different levels; communication of women, communication of goods and services, communication of messages. Therefore, kinship studies, economics and linguistics approach the same kinds of problems of different strategic levels and really pertain to the same field (Levi-Strauss, 1963 : 296).

We think that the view of literature as a commercial transaction is, to say the least, partial in that it wholly negates the creative role of the reader. Such a view raises several questions such as: Does the reader as consumer merely receive the work of literature like any other commodity? 1s it appropriate to view the literary
text as some kind of a well from which the reader draws pails of meaning for his aesthetic gratification?'. 'Doesn't each reading of a literary text add a new dimension to its meaning?' If it were not so, literature would end up being a closed-ended activity like any other commercial transaction, and the literary text would be a 'finished product' like any commodity-item. However, we do know that every genuine work of literature transcends time and lives amidst us as a potential - a potential that is realized or 'written' by each age, generation and by each individual reader. This is precisely the reason why every genuine work of literature is permanent, and yet ever new. A literary text is construed in such a way that it is withdrawn from all finality, since a text read is a text re- produced. A literary text is read again and again but its potential is never exhausted. Perhaps this also explains the fact that a literary text has no final interpretation.

It would be proper at this juncture to comment on certain aspects of literary activity. We wish to stress that the 'art-object' which is before us in the form of a literary text and the 'aesthetic object' which is realized by the reader in his experiential (sentient.) world are one, and at the same time, not one. The former may be referred to as the potential artistic form of the art-object and the latter as its experienced, actualized and articulated form. In linguistic terms one can liken this relationship to the one that obtains between a phoneme and its allophones. Just as a phoneme may be viewed as a cluster of meaningful features, similarly the literary text (art-object) may be viewed as a cluster of meaningful poetic features. At the level of art-object all the features of this unit are neither specified nor actualized. When this art-object (potential) is experienced as an aesthetic object the unspecified and suspended features have to be resolved and actualized by the reader in his own way. That is why the 'reading' of a literary text follows the logic of 'supplement' and is at the same time a process of reconstruction of the text.

When we talk of a literary object, viz., a poem, we do not refer to the physical manifestation of the literary artefact. By physical aspect we mean that a poem, which is held in language, may get manifested in phonic or graphic material. If we consider phonic material, we find that a poem may be realized in the form of different recitations by different persons and yet remains the 'same' poem. Similarly, the 'same' poem may be hand-written or typed or printed. The poem transcends its physical aspect, its material, and exists beyond it. In the present paper we are not going to deal with the poem's physical aspect, nor with the constraints that the material imposes on it. We would like to focus on the existence of the poem beyond its material. This existence of the poem has at least two aspects: The 'potential' which is invariant, and the 'actualized' which involves variant realizations of the potential. We would like to label the invariant potential as Work, and the actualized variant as Text.

Literary text, as distinct from work, is a concretization of the literary object in the reader's cognition. The cognition of the reader plays an active part with respect to all aspects of the work - the sound-word stratum, as well as, the meaning units. Above all, the process of concretization involves removing or filling the indeterminacies referred to by Ingarden. Filling in indeterminate places requires skill, perspicuity and creativity on the part of the reader. Ingarden (1973 : 50) refers to this process of concretization as 'comple- menting determination'. The process of concretization adds a dimension of variability to the text, as opposed to the invariant nature of the work. Through this process the art-object is converted into an aesthetic-object. Thus, a text, comes into existence after the art-object has been articulated by the reader. The process of articulation is not only a complex one in itself, it is also determined by several conditioning factors such as inter-textuality, ideology and intentionality. It is under these conditioning factors that a work grows as text and achieves plurality (Srivastava, 1985 : 22).

II

In the light of the foregoing remarks on text and work, it would be appropriate, at this juncture, to say a few words about Reception Theory which, according to Holub, refers "to a general shift in .concern from the author and the work to the reader and the text" (Holub. 1984 : xii). Reception theory, like reader-response criticism, accommodates such diverse systems as transactive criticism, structuralist poetics and affective stylistics. At the same time it signals, as does reader response criticism, a shift from the 'author-work' pole to the 'reader-text' pole. However, there is one significant way in which reception theory differs from the earlier reader-response criticism in that it first cognizes the reality of the work which is a potential held in language, and then its concretization as text by the reader. This is an important relationship and distinction that is not to be found in reader-response criticism. Reception theory also differs from Stanley Fish's affective stylistics in that here we have an account of text-reader interaction and dynamics, whereas in Fish's approach, despite minute analysis of the text, "the text contributes nothing to interpretation every thing is dependent on what the reader brings to it" (Holub, 1984 : 151). In effective stylistics the text disappears at the metacritical level because Fish considers any statement about text to be informed by prior conventions of interpretation.

Reception theory had its first precursor in Russian formalism which emphasized work-reader relationship by talking of verbal devices directed at defamiliarizing the literary object for deautomatized perception. This view found its best expression in the work of Shkiovskii, according to whom the function of art is to dehabitualize our perception in order to make the literary object come alive again. This made the 'device' a central tool for literary criticism, for it was the device which bridged the gap between the text and the reader. Connected with the 'device' is Shkiovskii's concept of defamiliarization. According to him, "the device of art is the device of 'defamiliarization' of objects and the device of the form made difficult, a device that increases the difficulty and length of perception; for the process of perception is in art an end in itself, and must be prolonged" (as quoted by Holub, 1984 : 18). Prague functional ism may be considered as another precursor of Reception theory. One of its leading proponents, Mukarovsky talked about aesthetic 'self-orientation' aspect of language used in poetry. According to him poetic languages is more suited than other functional languages for constantly reviving man's attitudes towards language. However, the domination of aesthetic function in poetic language was not considered exclusive by this school.

There is a constant struggle, a constant tension between self-orientation and communication, so that poetic language, though it stands in opposition to the other functional languages in its self-orientation, is not cut off from them by an insurmountable boundary (Mukarovsky, 1976 : 11).

One of the leading literary critics who influenced the Reception theory most as its precursor, was Ingarden. Like the American New-critics he first insisted on analysing the literary artefact intrinsically; for him the work itself was the focal point of all analysis and discussion. However, he related his intrinsic approach to the reading process via his theory of indeterminacy and his analysis of cognition. According to Ingarden the literary objects represented in a given work invariably exhibit spots of indeterminacy. For him each literary work is a heteronomous object dependent on an act of consciousness with which the reader approaches it. In the process of reading the reader fills out the indeterminacies (structural gaps). Ingarden calls this activity 'concretization'. Since the sensibility of an age, experiences of personal life and variable moods of the individual reader can affect each concretization, no two readings can ever be identical; and thus the process of concretization makes the role of the reader imperative. According to him, "what is indubitable is the fact. that for the constitution of an aesthetic object the co-creative activity of an observer is necessary and therefore several aesthetic objects may emerge on the basis of one and the same work of art and that these may differ among themselves in their aesthetic value" (Ingarden, 1972: 46).

Reception theory found its major theorists in Jauss and lser. Jauss emphasized the 'aesthetics of reception' in the context of his notion of 'horizon of expectation'. Two important points emerge in this context: Jauss's emphasis on the text, and the fact that he goes beyond the responses of the individual readers. For Jauss the guidelines for its concretization are built in the work itself. This being so, textual linguistics becomes important as an operational tool. Thus,

The psychic process in the reception of a text is, in the primary horizon of aesthetic experience, by no means only an arbitrary series of merely subjective impressions but rather the carrying out of specific instructions in a process of directed perception, which can be comprehended according to its constitutive motivations and triggering signals, and which also can be described by textual linguistics (Jauss, 1982 : 23).

Similarly, for lser the meaning of a literary artefact comes into being through a process of interaction which takes place between the work and the reader. For lser the meaning of a work is not 'an object to be defined' but 'an effect to be experienced'. Like Ingarden, lser holds the view that the aesthetic object comes into existence only through an act of cognition on the part of the reader. Thus, for him the literary artefact is neither exclusively work, nor is it exclusively the subjectivity of the reader; it is rather a resultant of text-reader dynamics. For this he invokes the term 'implied reader' which "incorporates both the pre-structuring of the potential meaning by the text (what we have called work), and the reader's actualization of this potential through the reading process (what we refer to as text)" (lser, 1974 : xii).

III

The communication perspective of literary studies, implicating text-production and text- reception, involves different dimensions of the activity of the reader. We can identify at least five such dimensions: Implied reader, pragmatic reader, implicit reader, interlocutor reader and the fictional receiver (reader). These dimensions correspond to five different levels of the literary artefact: idealized level, pragmatic level, implicational level, rhetoric level and fictional level (poesis). For explication of these five dimensions and levels of organization we have selected Tuisi Das's Ramcharit Marias.
At the idealized level literature is a generic term and is considered as a message addressed by creative writers as such, to the ideal reader. The term "ideal reader' does not refer to any particular individual reader. The term ideal reader is an equivalent of what is referred to as 'sahr'daya' in the Indian theory of poetics. The pragmatic level is typical of the concrete level of the literary artefact. For example, in the case of Ramcharit Manas, Tuisi Das as the 'poet-I' is the addresser; the work Ramcharit Manas is the message and the pragmatic reader is the addressee, i.e., the actual individual who enters into the actual process of reading. It is to be noted that while the ideal reader {sahridaya) is a 'you' functioning as signifiers without conventional signifieds, the pragmatic reader is one who has to be defined in spatiotemporal terms. The implicational level accepts Ramcharit Manas as literary message which is addressed by the poet Tuisi Das as a 'poetic-l' (implied author) to an implicit reader (i.e., a reader drawn within the work). This implied reader is a textual construct with which the pragmatic reader tends to identify himself. The next level, i.e., the rhetoric level centres round the thematic message (of Ramcharit Monas ) wherein Tuisi Das, as the narrator, identifies himself with rhetoric characters like Yagyavalkya, Shiva and Kakbhushundi, and addresses the message to the interlocutor-reader who may be identified with Bharadwaj, Parvati and Garuda respectively. It is worth noting that the rhetoric level is a manifestation of the implicational level which is latent. This is in line with Benveniste's (1971) suggestion that a discourse unfolds simultaneously along more than one axis, and that it has its origin in a split subject; that a discourse contains a latent, as well as, a manifest level, and that it issues from an unconscious, as well as, conscious speaking subject. At the fifth level (i.e., the fictional level) Ramcharit Manas is considered as a fictional message where literary personae enter both as addresser and addressee. For example, we have in Ramcharit Marias' exchange of messages between Kaikeyi- Manthara, Kevat-Rama and Angad-Ravana, etc.

It is obvious from the foregoing that when we talk of actualization or concretization of a work as text in the process of reading, the reader that we have in mind is the pragmatic reader. This pragmatic reader combines in himself all the other dimensions: the ideal reader, the implied Dimensions of Applied linguistics reader, the interlocutor reader and the fictional render.

IV

If the reading of the literary text depends on the reader's co-creative activity, it may be claimed that the reading of a test is, in a manner of speaking and in a special sense, the 'writing' of it also from this point of view then, the reader of a work of literature is not only a passive consumer hut also its active recreator. Since there is a qualitative difference between the nature and function of the writer who writes and creates the art-object and the reader who reads and actualizes that art-object as an aesthetic object, it becomes important for us to examine the creative role of the writer as well as that of the reader.

There are several aspects of the reader's creativity which need to be examined thoroughly. However, the present discussion is restricted to only one aspect, viz., the relationship between the nature and form of literary texts and the nature and function of the reader's co-creative activity, other variables are taken as constants as far as the present discussion is concerned. It is interesting to note that while the reader has complete freedom to read a literary text in his own idiosyncratic way, there is a limit to this freedom. When the limit is over-reached the meaning that the reader arrives at is often referred to as 'wrong' or 'exaggerated'. Not reading all the expressed or determinant feature'; of a text leads to partial or 'half reading'; and the addition of features contrary to those expressed or determined by the art-object leads to faulty interpretations. Thus, the reader's freedom to read anew or re-create the art-object is not only restricted to the unspecified and suspended features of the given art-object but also has the added restriction that such a reading and actualization as aesthetic object be compatible with the given meaning of the art-object.

The crux of the matter is: 'Do different kinds of literary texts require different kinds of reading?' If the answer to this question is in the affirmative, then the further question that comes up is, 1s it possible to classify the processes of writing and reading on the basis of this relationship?'

We maintain that in spite of surface similarities there are differences between one reading and another. These differences are based on the distinctive features/texture of the given literary text. We do not read classical literature in the same way as we read modern poetry or the new short- story. It may be mentioned here that this is not at all related with literary genre. Classical literature may be an epic like Paradise Lost or Ramcharit Manas or a novel like Godan or War and Peace. The reading required for these two genres is similar rather than dissimilar.

We would like to suggest that literary texts may be distinguished because the activity of writing can be differentiated. According to Barthes "the theory of text can coincide with the activity of writing". For instance, some writings are transitive while others are intransitive. In the transitive type the writing (verb) anticipates the presence of something else (an object). Here language is employed instrumentally to attain some extra linguistic end. Contrary to this, in intransitive writing, the writer does not have some extra- linguistic object to achieve. Here writing is an end in itself. Transitive writing -creates its text from the determinate aspect of its meaning. The process of signification thus moves from the signified to the signifier. In intransitive writing the text is based on the indeterminacy of meaning, i.e., it moves toward meaning. This corresponds to the two acts of reading suggested by Derrida, i.e., 'retrospective reading' based on determinate original meaning, and 'prospective reading' which proceeds on the indeterminacy of meaning. Both transitive and intransitive types of writing may be either normal or deviant, i.e., natural or emphatic. In emphatic transitive writing not only does the verb (writing) anticipate an object, but the focus is comparatively greater on the object rather than the verb, so much so that the object rather
than the actor and activity (writing) becomes the true focus. The question is not whether there is only writing (verb) or something else too (the object) 'if it is a literary text there is bound to be writing - the question really is that of giving or not giving added emphasis to the object. For example, the normal form of a transitive writing may be passivized giving us a form wherein the actor (writer) is relegated or deleted and primary emphasis is given to the object. The form thus obtained may be said to be marked for extra-literary features. Propogandist writings would thus come under this category of emphatic transitive writing. Transitive writing, by itself, does not give birth to cheap or inferior literature. Classical literature, or all writings labelled as 'classics' are the result of normal transitive writing because the object implied in them is the natural determinant of the verb (writing).

Many critics have commented on emphatic transitive writing. Commenting on Prem Chand's short stories Rajendra Yadav has this to say; "It is true that Prem Chand knows more about the problems of his class than we do; but then he only writes problems and their solutions and not stories (Abhiruchi, Feb., 1981 : 72). Here, Yadav is not merely calling Prem Chand's short- stories transitive writing, but going a step further and calling them emphatic transitive writing. Emphatic intransitive writing would include those works in which the objectivity of the basic traits of literature is emphasized out of all proportions, thus overlaying the act of writing. Such works are created on the principle of 'art for art's sake'.

In brief then, just as basic sentences have two general structures - transitive and intransitive - similarly literary texts have two basic writing styles - transitive style and intransitive style of writing, and just as the basic sentence types can be transformed into two derived 'voices' - passive in the case of transitive sentences and impersonal in the case of intransitive - similarly these two basic styles of writing can lead to 'thematized' propoganda literature or the impersonalized 'artistic' literature. These two derived styles of writing show a broken relationship between the two dimensions of the text-content (signified) and form (signifier). In propoganda literature the content is detachable while in writings attesting 'art for art's sake', the form is disengageable.

We began by asking whether different kinds of writing demanded different kinds of reading. In order to answer this question a brief comment is needed on emphatic writing. The reading of emphatic literary texts evokes commendatory exclamations, be they due to the overflow of ideas or due to the artistic skills employed in a given work. Contrary to this, natural writings, whether transitive or intransitive, have an effect that is directly connected with the sensibilities of the reader. There is yet another difference between natural writing and emphatic writing, both transitive and intransitive. Natural writing gives birth to works in which the focus is on the text. The text created by such writing is an 'emphatic goal'; its existence continues in the form of art- object and art-persona. It is this emphatic goal that inspires and directs the writing. Such works are not 'made' or 'sculpted' by the author; he rather becomes a medium of expression for his goal. Contrary to this, emphatic writings, both transitive and intransitive, are created by the author and the surface ideas or external craftmanship emerge as thematic substance. Such writings do not give rise to a literary persona, i.e., the poem's 1'; what in fact emerges is the author's extra-literary personality, i.e., the poet 1'. It is this difference that makes for different relationship between the reader and the literary text. Literary or poetic persona draws the reader within its own orbit. Here the reader experiences the poetic world as a participant-observer. The reading of such natural texts is, in reality, experiencing the poetic world. As opposed to this, emphatic writing gives rise to texts dominated by the poet's personality which pushes the reader out of the world it has created; the reader operates as an observer only and not as a participants-observer in the poetic world. The reader reads such texts keeping himself outside the poetic world. Reading thus becomes detached 'seeing' or uninvolved marvelling.

Coming to the distinction between transitive and intransitive writing, we find that the kind of reading process required for transitive writing has little of co-creative activity in it. It demands of the reader an "inner eye'. The literary text becomes a sort of window through which the reader views the poetic world that the literary artist wishes him to see. No doubt, such writings begin with the creation of a poetic world, but as they grow and spread they include the reader within their orbit. Some such works are: Prem Chand's short stories Poos ki raat and Kafan or his novel Godan or Hemingway's novel A Farewell to Arms. Tulidas's Ramcharitmanas also belongs to this class. In such writings unless the reader enters the poetic world, he cannot fully understand its meaning or significance. However, the creater of transitive writings is the author himself and not the reader. In other words, each transitive writing is the manifesto of its own creation. As the reader peruses the text he becomes increasingly familiar with this manifesto. Here reading is understanding the work and glimpsing through the poetic world into which the author has introduced the reader.

As against this, the process of reading intransitive works makes the reader not just an observer or partner. He has to add something to the meaning originally conceived and trapped in the text by the writer. Reading thus, demands co-creation or reconstruction of the text. The writer invites the reader to 'write' the work as he goes along. A reader who is unwilling for such 'writing' cannot unreadable. Cretain works of Muktibodh, Nirmal Verma and Govind Mishra belong to this category, as does Hemingway's the Old Man and the Sea. As far as the creative activity of the reader is concerned, the pleasure he derives from the reading of a transitive text is akin to the satisfaction born out of self-auldation that one gets after participation in a major cultural event or some 'mahayagya'. The perusal of intransitive texts gives a satiate joy such as tow partners feel when they have with their combined efforts made a 'home' for themselves.

There is a yet another difference. The feeling evoked by the perusal of a transitive text may continue to exist even after the actual reading is over. Transitive texts like Godan or Paradise Lost create a world in which the reader can wander at will even after the perusal of the text is over.

This is so because the poetic world of a transitive text has a concrete and real form which continues to sustain the feelings of the reader even after the text has been read. In intransitive texts, on the other hand, the feelings evoked are restricted to the actual perusal of the text. As long as the text is being actually read the reader's whole consciousness is touched by poetic sensibility and empathy. Once the activity of reading is over, the sensibility and empathy disappear. The fact of the matter is that the poetic world of intransitive texts, like the object of the verb, is unspecified and abstract. As such, apart from the actual text there is no 'world' which can be seen or lived in and comorehended.