Literary Art as Experience: A Transactional Perspective on the Interface between Scholarship and Pedagogy

spectrum of mail order and online distributors. Clearly, many people are buying books, and according to Mary Cregan, a lecturer at Barnard College, really good news is evidence that Americans by thousands are joining groups and taking their seriously.2 Cregan points to Oprah Winfrey as only most striking example of two important trends influencing contemporary book culture in America. One, the proliferation of groups across country in past few years sheds light on other, namely, a widening rift between scholarly critics, who write in a highly specialized language, and common readers. 3 These trends, Cregan claims, are driving force behind expanding market for guides designed to bridge academic and popular culture by helping readers recognize and discuss nuances of style, narrative form, historical and literary context, and genre. Moreover, she adds, these guides are beginning to play an important role in shaping how readers outside academy approach literary classics.4 I must admit to feeling less sanguine than Cregan does about prospect of publishers' marketing and promotional departments assuming role of educators in this way. It worries me to imagine that mission of communicating skills of careful reading might be entrusted to those motivated primarily by commercial interests.5 Moreover, having held teaching positions at high school and university levels, I speak as one situated within academy who resists simplistic notion of two distinct cultures, one academic, other popular, that need somehow to be bridged. Nonetheless, I agree with Cregan that literature instruction in schools and