578
PARTISAN REVIEW
the text written by the author; the method in fact creates what the
reader takes to be formal features of the text, " because my model
demands (the word is not too strong) perceptual cl osures and therefore
locations at which they occur. " In reading the sentence from Pa ter's
R enaissance,
for exampl e, Fish hazards brief perceptual closures after
each of the four op ening words: "Tha t clear perpetual outlin e ... "
It is apparent tha t by Fish 's start- stop stra tegy, a large part of a
text's meaning consists of the false surmises that the reader generates in
the temporal gaps between the words; and thi s p art, it turns out,
con stitutes many of Fish's new readings. T o cite one instance: Fish
presents a three-line passage from Milton 's
L ycidas
whi ch describes
one consequence of Lycidas's death:
The will ows and the h azel cop ses green
Shall now no more be seen ,
Fanning th eir joyous leaves
to
th y soft lays.
Although, he tell s us, it is
"mere ly
a coincidence" when a perceptual
closure coincides with a formal unit or ph ys ical fea ture such as the end
of a verse line, it happen s in thi s instance tha t the reader's process of
making sense "will invo lve the assumption (and therefore the creation )
of a compl eted assertion after the word 'seen '" a t the end of the second
line; he will then hazard the interpreta ti on tha t th ese trees, in sympathy
with the death of Lycidas, "will wither and die (will n o more be seen by
anyone)." And though thi s interpreta tion will be undone " in the act of
readin g the nex t lin e," whi ch reverses it by going on
to
say tha t they
"will in fact be seen, but they will not be seen by L ycidas," the fa lse
surmi se remains part of the text's meaning.
1 recall a n ew reading of the cl osing coupl et o f
L ycidas
whi ch
William York Tindall of Columbia proposed
to
me many yea rs ago.
T indall sugges ted the foll ow ing p erceptua l cl osures (1 cite the first
edition of 1637):
At last he rose, and twitch 'd. Hi s mantl e bl ew.
T o morrow to fresh Woods, and Pastures n ew.
T hose who know Bill Tinda ll may suspect he was n ot wholl y seri ous
in thi s proposal. Yet according to Fish 's stra tegy, it is the way a first
reader might h azard hi s perceptual cl osures. T he thought that, even
after subsequent correcti on, thi s mi sreading rema ins an element in th e
poem 's meaning is to me di squi etin g.
1 have myself tri ed, by way of experiment, to read in accordance
