An important transitional book, usefully summarizing the past and thoughtfully mapping out the future of a significant critic`s theoretical project."--`Modern Philology.` "There is a much greater emphasis on the reader`s function as `performer` of the text in `Prospecting` than in Iser`s other books. The two brilliant chapters on Beckett`s fiction and drama are crucial here...Literature becomes `play` and `game,` and the reader becomes a performer of himself. This idea of performance becomes central to Iser`s new theory. Art does not present life; it performs it."--`Yearbook of English Studies