Attention and Prefocusing in the Reading of Literary Works: Genette, Schaeffer and Carroll revisited

Abstract

This paper criticizes the constitutive role that both Gérard Genette and Jean-Marie Schaeffer give to attention in the aesthetic relation between a subject and a literary work. At the same time, the analysis is useful to re-signify Noël Carroll’s concept of criterial prefocusing. Based on structural and narrative analyses of the literary work of art, it is argued that aesthetic attention is not necessary in the aesthetic relation. In turn, it is argued that the affective and aesthetic states generated by reading depend on the relation between the reader and certain formal elements existing in the work. Accordingly, an interpretation of criterial prefocusing is proposed that highlights the importance of the influence of the author’s choices in the reader’s affective response.