The reader and the page : textual gaps, textual arrangements and images in prose fiction

Barton, S

Abstract

This thesis is a reader-focused analysis of unconventional graphic devices that appear on
the pages of graphically innovative prose fictions. The main aim is to provide a study of
the implications that unconventional and graphically disruptive pages have on the reading
process and how the reader can overcome this challenge and ultimately gain meaning
from these other modes of signification. The study prioritises the act of 'looking' that is
a fundamental part of 'reading' of the page. This focus on the arrangement of text on the
page has been largely neglected by previous literary critics. The materiality of the book
as an object is also fundamental to the understanding of some of the idiosyncratic devices
in the novels featured as examples here.
The three main chapters of this thesis explore the implications that textual gaps,
textual arrangements and visual images have on the reading process. Each chapter is
devoted to exploring the different effects of each of these three types of device on the
reader, and constructs a new critical vocabulary for the analysis of these previously
marginalised works of prose. Two separate case studies that follow them apply the
product of the previous three chapters to two exceptionally visual (and critically
marginalised) novels, Raymond Federman's Double or Nothing: A Real Fictitious
Discourse (1992) and William H. Gass' Willie Masters' Lonesome Wife (1968),
respectively. These case studies demonstrate the suitability of applying new terms to the
reading of unconventionally presented narratives and show how this focus on the page
can assist the critical interpretation of'difficult' novels that have previously been
marginalised by literary critics.

Citation

Barton, S. The reader and the page : textual gaps, textual arrangements and images in prose fiction. (Thesis). University of Salford

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Aug 12, 2021
• Award Date: Jan 1, 2012