Abstract: In narrative theory and literary analysis, it is regularly assumed that a text has a single implied author and a single implied reader. This is no doubt usually the case, but there are a number of interesting examples that cannot fit within this simple framework. In the last chapter of my book, Unnatural Voices, I argued the case for multiple implied authors; in this article, I would like to examine the other side of the narrative transaction and explore the possibilities of multiple implied readers inscribed within the same text. Perhaps the most obvious class of works written for two distinct audiences is one well known to all parents: children's literature. Many works of this genre appeal both to the child's mind and sensibility and at the same time to the very different interpretive frameworks of adults. In a stimulating essay on this subject, Per Krogh Hansen quotes Hans Christian Andersen on his intentions to address both groups simultaneously (101). For a notorious example from American popular culture, we may point to the Betty Boop cartoons of Max and Dave Fleischer, which are filled with brazen sexual innuendo that a child cannot fully comprehend. Defining the implied reader [implizierte Leser], Wolfgang Iser stated that the implied reader incorporates both the prestructuring of the potential meaning of the text, and the reader's actualization of this potential through the reading process (Implied xii). But much children's literature has two different prestructurings, one for the simple child and the other for the knowledgeable adult. And both are equally privileged, though in very different ways. And when literary authors like Lewis Carroll or William Makepeace Thackeray get into the act, yet another reader may be prestructured in the text as well, adding the highbrow sophisticate who understands the playful references to logic and parodies of Wordsworth (The White Knight's Tale) to the more ordinary parent and, of course, the child audience of the Alice books. (1) Political censorship produces its share of double codings. To take one notorious example, a conservative Irish newspaper, Irish Society, printed an unsigned poem called An Ode of Welcome to celebrate the return of the Royal Navy ships from South Africa in June 1900 during the Boer War. It contains appropriately patriotic and indeed jingoistic stanzas like: The Gallant Irish yeoman Home from the war has come Each victory gained o'er foeman Why should our bards be dumb. How shall we sing their praises Our glory in their deeds Renowned their worth amazes Empire their prowess needs. So to Old Ireland's hearts and homes We welcome now our own brave boys In cot and Hall; neath lordly domes Love's heroes share once more our joys. Love is the Lord of all just now Be he the husband, lover, son, Each dauntless soul recalls the vow By which not fame, but love was won. United now in fond embrace Salute with joy each well-loved face Yeoman: in hearts you hold the place. The amorous turn toward the end of the poem further enhances the praise of the warriors by affirming their status as heroes in a gendered national allegory as well as promising each the love awaiting them in women's hearts. The poem, however, turned out to have been written by Oliver St. John Gogarty, and the first letters of each line form an acrostic that produces an entirely opposite assessment of the virtues and rewards of British imperialism from that inscribed in the poem proper. Conditions of political censorship have produced such compositions for some time; one thinks of Milton secreting his radical politics within the story of the Fall of Man in Paradise Lost, perhaps the only way he could get them into print after the restoration of the monarchy (see Hill 341-412, esp. 380-90). Similarly, one may point to Bankim Chandra Chatterjee's rousing depiction of Hindu nationalists' victorious struggle over British forces in Anandamath (1882) by framing the text with anti-Muslim rhetoric and a pacifistic epilogue. …
Publication Year: 2007
Publication Date: 2007-09-22
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 22
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