The German critic Wolfgang Iser is one of the founders of reader-response criticism. Together with Hans-Robert Jauss and Norbert Groeben in Germany and Stanley Fish and Norman Holland in the United States, Iser directed the attention of critics--most of whom, until then, had regard only for "the text itself"-- to the role played by the reader in the interpretation of literary texts.

Iser was born in Marienberg on 22 July 1926 to Paul Iser, a businessman, and Else Iser, née Steinbach. He studied English, German, and philosophy at the Universities of Leipzig, Tübingen, and Heidelberg respectively. He received his doctorate in English literature at the University of Heidelberg in 1950; seven years later he obtained his Habilitation, or inauguration into an academic career, as a lecturer at the same university. On 24 May 1952 he married Lore Reichert (a translator). He was assistant lecturer at the University of...