No one seems to think it necessary to explain what is meant by "literature," or the "aesthetic." If one analyzes the use of these terms in their contexts, a variety of tacit assumptions seems to operate. Sometimes, all that is required is that a text already has been designated as "literature." Sometimes, the presence of story, of a narrative, is…

This article contains excerpts from the author's two seminal texts: "Literature as Exploration (New York: MLA, 1938) and "The Reader, the Text, the Poem" (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1978). In "Literature as Exploration," the author first presented her transactional theory of reading as she explored the personal, social,…

In this essay, the author explains not only how she came to write her classic text "Literature as Exploration," but she also describes the path of her own professional journey. A conviction about the difference between "literary" and other reading led to her writing "Literature as Exploration" in the first place. In this book, she argued that…