Later Generations Of Writing Theory: Authors And Readers

The culture of posterity,which is acknowledged as a posthumous life of writing,was initially concluded by the English scholarship Andrew Bennett.The culture of posterity is considered as an interactive theory between the author and his or her readers,therefore author and reader are two crucial elements in the culture of posterity.The culture of posterity contains two parts:the writer writes for the future with an impulse to pursue an afterlife;readers in the future generations will construct the text which the writer had left.To be specific,the writer produces works of art which directly points at an afterlife,therefore those writings can be regarded as tunnels which connects the past and the future.On the other hand,readers in the future will accept the author’s soul by receiving his or her works of art.With the operation of both the author and the reader,culture of posterity can be formulated.The motivation for the writer to compose towards the future mainly bases on three dimensions:the belief of literature’s counter-memory function,the pursue of the future of self-unconsciousness and the value of reputation.Besides,the unification of author’s subject,the transformation and preservation of textual languages,the blanks which settled in the text by the author all guarantee the works of art to disseminate in the future.After the author generates writings,those pieces of work will be accepted by readers.There are two groups of readers:contemporary readers and posthumous readers.Contemporary readers are thought to be unfair due to the limitation of the time and their reception of writings are believed to be prejudiced.Posthumous readers are considered the extension of implied readers,but actually they are not the ideal readers due to the lack of fore-structure of reading.Besides,posthumous readers are constructed by history.Readers accepted the author’s works by dealing with blanks.Filling and remaining of blanks constitute the important part of culture of posterity.There are two kinds of relationship between the author and the readers:readers’deconstruct to the author and the intergrowth relationship between them.The interactive relationship between the author and the reader promotes the process of classification and de-classification.