This volume shows how readers outside of academia apply literary texts. They relate what they have read to their lives and experiences in order to form new convictions and attitudes, or to change or discard their existing ones. Based on numerous documents relating to the first reception of nine novels from four centuries, this study is the first to demonstrate the existence, constitution, and relevance of this kind of application.

Autorentext

Jan Borkowski, Georg August University Göttingen, Germany.