Big and shaggable and empty inside
Wolfgang Iser’s putative primer to literary theory has been published at the same moment that tentatively “ex”- theoreticians such as Terry Eagleton are heralding theory’s demise. Two schools of thought regarding theory are circulating in the critical slough, and both have degenerated into self-parody. The view of theory as a methodological tool for extracting meaning, like a dentist plying a recalcitrant molar, has rusted away from disuetude as meanings become increasingly subjective.

The “Prada bag” strand flaunts theory as conspicuous consumption. The ability to nonchalantly spout off theoretical terms is like name-dropping footballers we’ve shagged, a sophomoric self-aggrandizement done by packing research with superfluous big words. It has been an English Studies axiom for years that slipping buzzwords like “post-structuralist” or “Derrida” into a paper is a cheap way to net a few extra points, while looking disinterestedly fauxhemian in the process. The only new “meaning” created is petty academic standing, and the significance of the text is obscured under a heap of terminology and dust.

Don’t sully the text!
So the appearance of Wolfgang Iser’s book, with its utilitarian DIY title, seemed to be cause for hope. Perhaps theory could be something used, rather than ostentatiously quoted. But like New Criticism, which promised to save the world through analyzing texts, How To Do Theory fails to do what it says on the tin, starting with the word “do.” Rather than the active application that the word “do” implies, “absorb” might be a more appropriate term.

Iser is a Reception Theorist, and he views theories not as hermeneutical implements, but as texts in and of themselves to be receieved and processed on our end. All we then “do” as readers is to decipher Iser’s turgid prose. We then have more knowledge about what theories are flying about in the critical ether, but little praxis to actually accomplish anything with them. Readers are to expected to either stand in awe before the theory, or to pick it apart, for to apply theory would somehow sully the text. Iser seems to view the discipline of lit crit like a flash car, too shiny to dirty by actually driving it.

Consumer choice
In exchange for utility, we get variety. How To Do Theory features several approaches which have been excluded in other lit-crit primers written by those like Eagleton of a more teleological bent. Gestalt Theory, Semiotics, John Dewey’s view of the aesthetic experience, and even Eric Gans’ anthropological reading have their allocated baker’s dozen of pages. Iser also gives less-known theorists their due, using Anton Ehrenzweig to illustrate psychoanalysis, while giving Freud and Lacan a much needed breather.

The appendix provides us with a proving ground on which to test our critical ordnance, providing such Fresher English Anthology favourites as Keats’ Ode on a Grecian Urn and T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land. I was anticipating the opportunity to illuminate the differing approaches of various theories by executing successive bombing runs on The Waste Land using Deconstruction, Marxism and other armaments. However Iser perplexingly employs these texts for only a few theories, illustrating some schools of thought with target texts unprovided. It was also semi-sacriligeous to turn the rapture of Keats into a specimen under the critical microscope. To his credit, Iser mentions twice that these exempla were the “publisher’s stipulations”.

Cookery book- for erudite people
Just as Eagleton interpolates Marxist diatribes into his exposition, Wolfgang Iser seems to be the kind of fellow who would analyze a cookbook for literary quality, without bothering to prepare the food, he turns theories into mere texts to be received. The chapter on Marxist theory eloquently examines the tension of base and superstructure, while eschewing any and all discussion of literature as an agent for social justice. Gans’ concept of the “originary scene” i.e. that human culture came about as a way to prevent Neanderthals from tearing each other apart over a moose carcass, gets a lucid treatment. However any larger view that culture is received by groups rather than individuals is left out.

Perhaps How To Do Theory is a book for today’s critical climate. It seems to treat theory like James Fenimore Cooper novels; complicated texts that no one really reads any more, but that are useful for erudite people to know. Maybe theory was a fad of the latter half of the 20th century, to be superseded by Stephen Greenblatt-style generic Historicism. However, Iser’s aims may ultimately be liberating. By expanding the definition of theory beyond interpretive instruction sheets to metaphors of viewing, one can rejoice in the aesthetic again, without the compulsion to tear it apart first.

If one is looking for a general primer to theory and its application, look elsewhere; Raman Selden’s Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory (Prentice Hall, 1996) is a good start. However, if you are looking to be reminded that you read literature because you enjoyed it, before all the banal analysis and posturing, then How to Do Theory could fit a place on your shelf.