ABSTRACT
Is 'reader' a critical term that warrants attention? Or are readers unproblematically obvious in any consideration of literature? For a long time, the second view prevailed. Classical theory, seeing literature as an affective medium, necessarily assumed a reader to be affected, but did not emphasize the reader as such. Horace, in his Art of Poetry, says that the poet's aim is either to profit or to please-but readers are dismissed with the casual comment that elders prefer profit and youngsters pleasure.
