CAT 2021 Slot 1 · VARC · Question 19

The four sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3, 4) below, when properly sequenced would yield a coherent paragraph. Decide on the proper sequencing of the order of the sentences and key in the sequence of the four numbers as your answer:

1. The work is more than the text, for the text only takes on life, when it is realized and furthermore the realization is by no means independent of the individual disposition of the reader.

2. The convergence of text and reader brings the literary work into existence and this convergence is not to be identified either with the reality of the text or with the individual disposition of the reader.

3. From this polarity it follows that the literary work cannot be completely identical with the text, or with the realization of the text, but in fact must lie halfway between the two.

4. The literary work has two poles, which we might call the artistic and the aesthetic; the artistic refers to the text created by the author, and the aesthetic to the realization accomplished by the reader.