Literature as Experience-Inviting Discourse presents a general perspective on the art of literature, starting from the questions of what literature is, how it works, and what it is for. It is a main theme in the book that what we typically call literature is written to be read and freely experienced – it is “experience-inviting discourse” meant for “experience-oriented reading”.
This central idea leads to a number of important literary-theoretical topics. Among the issues addressed in depth are the structure of verbal communication, the makeup of the concept of literature, the psychology of literary reading, and the relationship between literary criticism and experience-oriented reading. On this last point the author underlines the difference in purpose between critical and experience-oriented reading. What we typically call literature is written for offering worthwhile experiences, not for being made the object of literary-critical observations, no matter how valuable these may be in their own way.