Има ли читател в този текст: „Читатели в текста“
Is There a Reader in This Text: “Readers in the Text”

Summary/Abstract: The study discusses a collection of essays, entitled “Readers in the Text: The Implicit Reader in Contemporary Bulgarian Literature”. The collection is conceptualized as a book with a scholarly, investigative focus on the implicit reader in seven highbrow literary texts, seven popular texts, and six media texts. The latter are interpreted by a team of seven literary scholars. The initial individual choices made by each researcher problematically implements the methodological instrumentarium. The elaborated methodology resurrects Iser’s concept of the implicit reader and readjusts it through the optic of the audience in mind. The instruments used confirm, in some cases, the “high status” of particular works, which critics feel entitled to challenge. Alternatively, allegedly highbrow works target broad or “niche” audiences as their implicit reader. The highbrow-popular binary, thus, appears to be questioned by the methodology, requiring a new heuristic division. Therefore, the book productively challenges its own preliminary perceptions, premises, and preconditions. While the answers do not cohere into a single conclusion, they open new perspectives.

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