Concepto de educación emocional

extent the reader feels him-w;lf to have been excluded, and indeed superficially his

position might l>c said to resemble that of the roman d.these reader. But whereas every-

thing has already been decided for the latter, the Cornpton-Burnett ttovel removes all

possibility of decision—even when an utterance appears

^'Hilary Corke, "New Novels," The Listener 58, Nr. 1483 (1957): 322.

194 Interaction between Text and Reader

to be decisive in itself. The roman a these tends to bore us nowadays, for it only allows its reader sufficient latitude to imagine that he is accepting voluntarily an attitude that has in fact been foisted upon him; the Ivy Compton-Burnett novel leaves behind a many-sided blank in respect of what people really are. A blank that is structured in this way not only prevents connectability within the text but also makes it impossible for the text to be connected up to the reader's own store of experience. If the behavior of the characters seems to us to be increasingly improbable, brutal, and 'inconceivable', we are then forced to consider what conditions our own sense of probability, decency, and conceivability. This is how we fill the 'many-sided blank'. Generally speaking, such a process can have one of two consequences: either we hold fast to our own preconceptions, in which case we fall short of the consciousness revealed by these characters, who can only gain access to one another by revealing what has been hidden; or we step back from our own conceptions and take a critical look at them. If we do this, we are, in fact, constituting the meaning of the novel, whatever may be the contents of our own preconceptions. Thus the salient structure of the text controls the otherwise uncontrollable concepts prevalent in this ideational activity. In reacting to the conditions governing his own ideas, the reader can regain the transcendental position he had temporarily lost but had always expected from a literary text, and so he is able to acquire the detachment necessary for comprehension. In such modern works, the restoration of the reader's elementary expectations coincides with the objectifi-cation of his prevailing norms and values.

With the roman d these, the serial story, and the Ivy Compton-Burnett novel, we have seen how the blanks of a literary text may be exploited for propagandist, commercial, and aesthetic purposes. The thesis novel reduces them in order to indoctrinate; the serial increases or enhances them in order to stimulate extra curiosity; the modern novel thematizes them in order to confront the reader with his own projections. These three types are extreme cases from a wide range of possible uses. The vital factor for us, however, is not so much the different uses as the structure that underlies them. By impeding textual coherence, the blanks transform themselves into stimuli for acts of ideation. In this sense, they function as a self-regulating structure in communication; what they suspend turns into a propellant for the reader's imagination, making him supply what has been withheld. Thus the self- regulating structure operates according to the principle of homeostasis. As we have seen, the balance may be weighted in many different ways, but the structure itself remains constant: it is an empty space which both provokes and guides

How Acts of Constitution Are Stimulated 195

die ideational activity. In this respect, it is a basic element of the interaction between text and reader. THE FUNCTIONAL STRUCTURE OF THE BLANK

We shall now have a closer look at the basic function of the blank as regards the guidance it exercises in the process of communication. As blanks mark the suspension of connectability between textual segments, they simultaneously form a condition for the connection to be established. By definition, however, they can clearly have no determinate content of their own. How, then, is one to describe them? As an empty space they are nothing in themselves, and yet as a 'nothing' they are a vital propellant for initiating communication. Wherever there is an abrupt juxtaposition of segments, there must automatically be a blank, breaking the expected order of the text. "The division of the text," writes Lotman, "into segments of equal value endows the text with a certain order. But it seems to be of vital importance that this order should not be completely followed through. This prevents it from becoming automatic and, in relation to the structure, redundant. The orderly sequence of the text

always appears as an organizing force which builds the heterogeneous material into series of equivalences but, at the same time, does not eliminate its heterogeneity."22 _{Indeed, as a matter of}

principle this cannot be eliminated by the text, as the segments, and the equivalences to be formed from them, have no basis and do not refer to any given object, so that only their relations to one another make it possible for the 'object' or world of the text to be constituted.

But how can the equivalences to be formed from the heterogeneous segments be sufficiently controlled to prevent this world—at least structurally—from being constituted according to purely arbitrary subjectivity? Our starting-point must be the fact that each textual segment does not carry its own determinacy within itself, but will gain this in relation to other segments. Here literature may join hands with other media, such as the cinema. Balazs says of film sequences: ". . . even the most mean- ingful take is not sufficient to give the picture its total meaning. This is ultimately decided by the position of the picture between other pictures. ... In every case and unavoidably the picture takes on its meaning by way of its place in the series of associations . . . the pictures are, as it were, loaded with a tendency toward a meaning, and this is fulfilled at the moment when it makes contact with other pictures."23

22_{Lotman, Struktur litemrischer Texte, p. 201.}

23_{Bela Balazs, Der Geist des Films, transl. by W. Knapp (Halle, 1930), p. 46.}

ig6 Interaction between Text and Reader

The segments of the literary text follow precisely the same pattern.24 _{Between segments and cuts there}

is an empty space, giving rise to a whole network of possible connections which will endow each segment or picture with its determinate meaning. Whatever regulates this meaning cannot itself be determinate, for, as we have pointed out before, it is the relationship that gives significance to the segments—there is no tertium comparationis. Now, if blanks open up this network of possible connections, there must be an underlying structure regulating the way in which segments determine each other.

If we are to grasp the unseen structure that regulates but does not formulate the connection or even the meaning, we must bear in mind the various forms in which the textual segments are presented to the reader's viewpoint. Their most elementary form is to be seen on the level of the story. The threads of the plot are suddenly broken off, or continued in unexpected directions. One narrative section centers on a particular character and is then continued by the abrupt introduction of new characters. These sudden changes are often denoted by new chapters and so are clearly distinguished; the object of this distinction, however, is not separation so much as a tacit invitation to find the missing link.

Furthermore, in each articulated reading moment, only segments of textual perspectives are present to the reader's wandering viewpoint, and their connection to each other is more often than not suspended. An increase of blanks is bound to occur through the frequent subdivisions of each of the textual perspectives: thus the narrator's perspective is often split into that of the implied author set against that of the author

24_{This observation is based on the general relation between word and meaning as described by Gurwitsch, Field of} Consciousness, pp. 262f., in his discussion of Stout's theory of meaning—a theory which still plays a substantial role in present-day research on reading: , ,

Carriers of meaning are, for example, the words on a printed page, in that the perception of the words gives rise to specific acts through which the expressed thought is grasped. If words are perceived as meaningful symbols, not merely as black traits on a white ground, it is only because the perception of the words arouses and supports specific acts of meaning-apprehension. However, the perceived words belong in no way to the meaning apprehended through those acts which, in turn, are founded upon the perception of the very words. When we are reading a report of actual events, or a theoretical discourse, the words, whether taken as to their mere physical existence or as symbols, that is, insofar as they support acts of meaning-apprehension, play no role within the context of the apprehended meaning. Such a role is not played by the acts of meaning-apprehension either. Meaning is here understood in the objective sense as different from the apprehension of meaning. ... At any event, no component of a meaning-unity can play the role of a carrier of meaning either with respect to itself or the meaning-unity of which it is part, since the meaning-unity as a whole ns well as its components are apprehended through specific nets founded upon, and supported by the perception of the carrier of meaning. For the same reason, no carrier of meaning can, conversely, form part of the meaning it carries.

How Acts of Constitution Are Stimulated 197

as narrator; the hero's perspective may be|

_!_-.-• -1 _{*"* '"}

set against that of the minor

characters; the fictitious reader's perspective may be divided between the explicit position ascribed to him and the implicit attitude he must adopt to that position.

As the reader's wandering viewpoint tiavels between all these segments, its constant switching during the tine-flow of reading intertwines them, thus bringing forth a network of pe spectives, within which each perspective opens up a view not only of ot lers but also of the intended imaginary object. Hence no single textual/perspective can be equated with this imaginary object, of which it pnly forms one aspect. The object itself is a product of interconnections, the structuring of which is to a great extent regulated and controlled by blanks. In order to explain this operation, we shall first give a schematic description of how

the blanks function and then we shall try do illustrate this function with ' j an example.

In the time-flow of reading, segments of pie various perspectives move into focus and take on their actuality by fyeing set off against preceding segments. Thus the segments of characters, narrator, plot, and fictitious reader perspectives are not only marshaled into a graduated sequence, but are also transformed into reciprocaf reflectors. The blank as an empty space between segments enables ttyem to be joined together, thus constituting a field of vision for the wandering viewpoint. A referential field is always formed when there are an least two positions related to and influencing one another—it is the minimal organizational unit in all processes of comprehension, and it is also the basic

organizational unit of the wandering viewpoint. Gurwitsch, with his modification of the gestalt theory, has clearly demonstrated the extent to which the conscious mind organizes external data into "fields" and thereby creates the precondition for all comprehensioii.2r_{' The first structural quality of the blank,}

then, is that it makes possible the organization of a referential field of interacting projections.

Now the segments present in the field are structurally of equal value, and the fact that they are brought together highlights their affinities and their differences. This relationship gives rise to a tension that has to be resolved, for, as Arnheim has observed in a more general context: "It is one of the functions of the third dimension to come to the rescue when things get uncomfortable in the second."20 _{The third}

dimension comes about when the segments of the referential field are given a common framework which allows the reader to relate,affinities and differences and

2r_{'See, ibid., pp. 309-75; see also Alfred Schiitz/Thomas Luckmann, Strukltircn der Lcbcnswelt (Ncuwied and Darmstadt,} 1975), pp. 196f.

""Rudolf Arnheim, Toward a Psychology of Art (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 11 p. 239.

ig8 Interaction between Text afid Reader

so to grasp the pattern underlying the connections. But this framework is also a blank,