ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses a challenge to these perspectives, focusing on the reconceptualize literariness. It suggests that literariness cannot be defined simply as a characteristic set of text properties. The chapter argues that literariness is the product of a distinctive mode of reading that is identifiable through several key components of response to literary texts. It describes several studies that provide evidence favoring this conception of literariness, evidence that appears difficult to understand either within the discourse processing or postmodern theoretical framework. The chapter deals with one reader's account of a moment during reading that shows evidence of all several components of literariness. However, a review of empirical studies of literary readers reveals traces of literariness that appear irreducible to either of these explanatory frameworks. The chapter also suggests that the conception of literariness can appropriately be grounded in three-level analysis.