Literature as Exploration

Louise Rosenblatt's Literature as Exploration has influenced literary theorists and teachers of literature at all levels for six decades. Now reissued an attractive trade edition, it features new foreword by Wayne Booth, 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 democratic society. The author's philosophy is frequently cited as the first presentation of reader-response theory, but she differs from her successors 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 particular reader and particular text under particular circumstances. And teachers of literature, Rosenblatt argues, play pivotal role influencing how students perform response to text. Students, teachers, and scholars reading the book for the first time will be as enlightened and challenged by this classic work as earlier generations have been. The many readers of the previous editions of Literature as Exploration will want to own this special edition, with its larger format, elegant typography, and new supporting materials.