Expanding Henry: Fiction reading and its artifacts in a British literary society

Author:Reed, A

Article Title:Expanding Henry: Fiction reading and its artifacts in a British literary society

Abstract:
Members of the Henry Williamson Society talk of what fiction reading does for them. Their experience of literature is connected to their appreciation of the author Henry Williamson as a central and mythic figure. How Henry is composed determines the kind of actors readers can be and also explains the capacities assigned to the Williamson artifacts-books and land-that they identify. In this article, I explore a theory of reading as relationship and examine the role of literature as an instrument of social agency. I focus on the relationships that society members draw out around solitary acts of reading and Literary society activities, including the way they assign causation. within a matrix of relations. As well as examining their culture of owning, reading, and displaying books, I investigate society members appreciation of geographical Location. The article aims to contribute to the development of anthropological theories of literature.

Keywords: solitary reader; mind; agency; place; material culture; United Kingdom

DOI: 10.1525/ae.2004.31.1.111

Source:AMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST

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