[MD] Taking Words Seriously

[Matt Kundert]

Hey Dave,

DMB said:
I forget who said it and where I heard it, but there is at least one 
writer who says that writers write for an ideal reader.

Matt:
Sure, that's a pretty old trope I think.  It's been a critical 
commonplace for at least the last 60 years (though has come under 
theoretical fire in this time in various ways as a critical fiction), so I 
suspect it came from some place much earlier (and possibly even 
from a critic).

My favorite version is Ralph Ellison's.  He called the ideal American 
reader "the little man behind the stove at Chehaw Station."

Thanks for the conversation,

Matt