Tidskrift för lärarutbildning och forskning 4/2005

Literature as Exploration
Interview with Louise M Rosenblatt (1904–2005)
– Princeton, NJ, USA, April 25, 2001
Per-Olof Erixon & Gun Malmgren
Prologue
Our contact with Louise M. Rosenblatt’s theories
goes back to the seventies. We gained the
opportunity to meet her when we participated in
the NCTE-conference in Denver in November
1999. At that conference Louise Rosenblatt was
awarded Recipient of the 1999 Outstanding Educator
in the English Language Arts Award.
It was a late session that was held in one of
those premises, which seem to be hidden under
every big American hotel. The speaker was
the well-known theorist Robert Scholes. Just
before Mr Scholes was about to start his speech
the door was opened carefully in the rear by
Louise Rosenblatt. With powerful steps, she
quickly walked to the front of the room and
was soon found sitting just in front of Mr Scholes.
Together with the rest of the audience she
listened very carefully to what Mr Scholes had
to say. But when the audience gave Mr Scholes
a big round of applause at the end of his lec-
ture we all noticed that Louise Rosenblatt was
not as satisfied about all details of Mr Scholes’
contribution.
When the applause died down, she rose from
her chair and stepped forward towards Mr.
Scholes, who took a step aside and gave space
to her. In a very short while Louise Rosenblatt
was in the middle of her own speech, in which
she theorized about and criticized Mr Scholes’
work from a variety of perspectives. According
to her view, Mr Scholes’ view of literature in
general, and reader’s relation to literature specifically,
could be questioned.
This episode had a strong impact on both of us
and gave us a glimpse of the power and engagement
that had carried Louise Rosenblatt
through her whole life. It was a real experience
to hear, and later on, meet this woman, who
started to teach as a teacher when our own
parents were small children and who published a
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Tidskrift för lärarutbildning och forskning, nr 4 2005 s 51–75 Umeå: Fakultetsnämnden för lärarutbildning. Printed in Sweden