ABSTRACT
Nothing happens in reading unless we pay attention to the text. Reading is merely the form of attention we give to words. Attention, or consciousness, operates on many levels in reading as in any other part of our existence. The more we pay attention, the more meaning we derive from our experience. The various levels of attention translate into wholly different experiences for the reader, different echelons of meaning.
Literary criticism is a research discipline like physics, economics, or archeology, and any discipline imposes constraints. We gather evidence, chiefly the text. We can propose any interpretation we like as long as we support it with evidence.
Emotional readers become personally invested in the book. It means something to us, and we must work, struggle, alter our way of thinking—even change ourselves if necessary—in order to align ourselves with what that meaning is.
The imaginative reader searches with the intellect for the meaning of the text but immerses himself in it like an emotional reader. The experience of soul in reading a book gives us leverage everywhere else. Phenomena that before seemed only dry and utilitarian now reveal depths of interest. They draw us to them. They sprout possibilities.
