| Classical literary theories often lay emphasis on the objectivity of literary text. They think of the text as an end product of the author and an object for contemplation. But with the introduction of "forestructure" and "fusion of horizon" into literary criticism, literary studies begin to turn their eyes to the importance of the roles of readers in the process of understanding.This thesis consists of three parts: Introduction> body and conclusion. In introduction, three different views about the location of meaning are discussed. The first is that meaning lies in the mind of the author; the second is that meaning is in the open text; the third is that meaning is in the reader.The body contains four chapters. The first chapter is about the meaning of literary text and understanding. The explanation of the meaning of literary text shows a development from a formal structure to an experience or process created by the reader. And with the introduction of Heideggar' s ontological existence and Gademar' s fusion of horizon, the subjective roles of the readers are stressed in the process of understanding.The second chapter concerns itself with the impossibility of pure objectivity. The first reason is that when readers with different expectations of horizon interact with the text, the meaning of the text will of course assumes subjectivity. The second is that meaning is an event; it is the experience of the reader which determines the meaning of the text. The third is that even if there exists the "objective" meaning in a literary text, the reader can not fully discloses it as the reader can only grasp a part or an aspect of the whole. A literary text is an intersubjective existence. The last reason is when a text is produced, the author is no longer there to tell of his intention or his meaning, that is to say, the author is"dead" and the text becomes an autonomous entity, whose meaning is waiting for the reader to discover, which inevitably involves the subjectivity of the reader. Meaning is in the play of language and the conventions that the reader has grasped.The third chapter dwells on the peculiar characteristics of literary text as a possible world for interpretation. The discrepancy between the text world and real world, the strangeness of the literary language and the indeterminacy of the literary text require the reader to play their subjective roles.The last chapter of the body deals with the categorization of the readers and their roles. Following a brief introduction to Gibson' s and Prince' s reader to show the early attempts to find the roles of the readers, the thesis begins to clarify in details the following four types' of the readers.The first is Jauss' s historical real reader, who is supposed to be the first real reader in the same historical period when the text is created, whose role is to wander in the reading process and reconstruct the original historical horizons.The second is Culler' s ideal reader. Equipped with literary competence, Culler' s ideal reader is to have an appropriate understanding of the text.The third is Holland psychologically describable reader, who carries his psychological identity into the text. The relationship between the reader and the text, according to Holland, is that of fantasy and defense. Often the reader finds in the text a match for the expectation, and then defends against it according to his characteristic strategies, either to gratify his wishes or to defeat the fears. If his wishes or fears are defensively adapted, the reader derives fantasies from the text and transforms the guilty and anxiety aroused by the fantasies into an aesthetic experience. In this DEFT process, Holland' s reader creates the meaning of the text accordingto his psyche.The last kind of reader is heuristic one. I mainly discuss Iser' s implied reader and Fish' s informed reader. Iser embodies the actual reader in his implied reader. The reader plays two kinds of roles: textual structure and structure act. Textual structure is composed of three basic...
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