The nature of one’s perspective on the literary text, the relationship between writing and speech, and the position of the reader in relation to the text are fundamental issues that extend from ancient poetic questions to modern theoretical debates. Atiye Gülfer Gündoğdu’s Yazının Önünde: Edebî Metnin Anlamının Teşekkülünde Okurun Rolü (Before the Text: The Role of the Reader in the Formation of Meaning in a Literary Work) reconsiders these questions along the axes of historical continuity and theoretical transformation, positioning the act of reading not merely as the production of meaning but as a ground for bearing witness to the emergence of meaning itself. The first chapter examines how the encounter with writing transforms the space of reading and understanding; the second explores the historical forms through which this transformation has taken shape since the late Ottoman period; and the third addresses the problem of the silencing of the text’s voice within modern modes of interpretation. Tracing the evolving relationship between the reader and the text throughout history, Gündoğdu argues that this encounter constitutes a formative experience that transforms the reader and shapes their life. Such an encounter requires the reader to allow the literary text to speak and to interpret it independently of the context in which it originally emerged. In this regard, the study engages critically with reader-response theories that gained prominence in the second half of the twentieth century, and through the hermeneutic thought of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur, it repositions the possibilities for understanding the processes through which meaning takes shape in the literary text.
