Literary Intention, Literary Interpretations, And Readers

“At last—a book on literary theory and interpretation that is as refreshing and as accessible to students and general readers as it is provocatively challenging to the professoriat. John Maynard’s essays are absorbing, probing, and inspiring in their broad re-thinking of the foundations of interpretation and the potential creation of a utopian moment of reader freedom, unencumbered by the stultifying models of monolithic interpretation. The scholarship is impressive, the style vibrant, the arguments forcefully stated, and the constructive power of diverse readers and readings eminently apparent.” — Lewis Kamm, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth

“What is it to be a reader, as opposed to the author or the language, of a literary text? This was one of the regulating questions of literary criticism a generation ago. John Maynard’s Literary Intention is a comprehensive work of intellectual history that investigates the concepts and theories that once animated intense debates about intentionality, reception-aesthetics, and ideology-critique. At the same time, it locates the reasons why critics began to weave cultural tapestries around texts instead of interpreting them. By turns critical and elegiac, Maynard’s book is written with enviable clarity and grace. It will prove indispensable for courses on the history of criticism, not to mention our efforts to explain how we got to where we are now.” — Gerald Bruns, University of Notre Dame