Carnal Reading

Download or read book Carnal Reading written by Joseph Pappa and published by University of Delaware. This book was released on 2011-05-16 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The question of an erotic readership has always vexed scholars. With little evidence of anyone's actually reading erotic material, scholars have made due with variations of an "ideal reader" approach. Insofar as it presupposes authorial intention and a stable meaning this theoretical model proves unsatisfactory. Using an interdisciplinary approach, Carnal Reading proposes a new theory of erotic reading that refigures bodily responses as constitutive of cognitive understanding. Chapters explore the enthusiasm inspired by religious reading, the impressionable and "permeable" nature of the early modern body, contemporary literary critiques and the potential eroticism immanent in language.