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Literary notes about Reader (AI summary)

The term “reader” in literature is a versatile device used by authors to engage, instruct, and sometimes even challenge the audience. At times, it serves as a direct address, inviting an intimate rapport between writer and audience—as when an author exclaims “Patience, O my dear reader!” [1] or queries, “What do you, reader, think right now?” [2]. In other instances, the reader is positioned as a discerning evaluator, expected to judge the narrative or interpret complex ideas on their own, as seen in the assertion that one may “judge for himself” [3] or that “the reader will now be able to understand” a particular explanation [4]. Additionally, the term can designate a specific kind of audience, for instance, the “modern reader” whose suspicions must be addressed [5] or even allude to specialized expertise in certain fields [6]. Through these varied uses, “reader” becomes an active participant in the literary experience rather than a passive recipient, thereby shaping both the story and its reception.
  1. Patience, O my dear reader!
    — from The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Complete by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
  2. What do you, reader, think right now?
    — from Psychological Warfare by Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger
  3. Upon this point, however, I feel a degree of proud satisfaction in permitting the reader to judge for himself.
    — from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition by Edgar Allan Poe
  4. The reader will now be able to understand without much trouble the function of a pair of spectacles.
    — from How it Works by Archibald Williams
  5. " By this time the modern reader's suspicions are dissolved.
    — from The Hungry Stones, and Other Stories by Rabindranath Tagore
  6. As to the Notes accompanying the present volume, they are drawn up without pretension, and mainly with the view of helping the general reader.
    — from The Iliad by Homer

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