“Reading is not a straightforward linear movement,”

—  Terry Eagleton

Source: 1980s, Literary Theory: An Introduction (1983), Chapter 2, p. 67 (See also: Northrop Frye)
Context: Reading is not a straightforward linear movement, a merely cumulative affair: our initial speculations generate a frame of reference within which to interpret what comes next, but what comes next may retrospectively transform our original understanding, highlighting some features of it and backgrounding others.

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Terry Eagleton 57
British writer, academic and educator 1943

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