Reader-response criticism

Introduction:

Good morning classmates, good morning sir.. Now we are going to discuss the another
types of literary criticism.

1. Reader-response criticism is a school of literary theory that focuses on the reader or

"audience” and his or her experience of a literary work, in contrast to other schools
and theories that focus attention primarily on the author or the content and form of the
work.

Explain:

As its name implies, reader-response criticism focuses on readers’ responses to literary

texts. Reader-response criticism is a broad, exciting, evolving domain of literary studies that can
help us learn about our own reading processes and how they relate to, among other things,
specific elements in the texts we read, our life experiences, and the intellectual community of
which we are a member. (Tyson 153).

At its most basic level, reader-response criticism considers readers' reactions to literature as
vital to interpreting the meaning of the text. However, reader-response criticism can take a
number of different approaches.

2. A critic deploying reader-response theory can use a psychoanalytic lens, a feminist lens, or
even a structuralist lens. What these different lenses have in common when using a reader-
response approach is they maintain "...that what a text is cannot be separated from what it
does" (Tyson 154).

Reader-response criticism covers a good deal of diverse ground such as psychoanalytic

criticism (when it investigates the psychological motives for certain kinds of interpretations of a
literary text), feminist criticism (when it analyzes how patriarchy teaches us to interpret texts in
a sexist manner), structuralist criticism (when it examines the literary conventions a reader
must have consciously or unconsciously internalized in order to be able to read a particular
literary text). (Tyson ).

2. Tyson explains that

"...reader-response theorists share two beliefs:

Reader-Response theory, which did not receive much attention until the 1970s, maintains that
what a text is cannot be separated from what it does. For despite their divergent views of the
reading process, reader-response theorists share two beliefs:
 a.) that the role of the reader cannot be omitted from our understanding of literature.
b.) that readers do not passively consume the meaning presented to them by an objective
literary text; rather they actively make the meaning they find in literature.

This second belief, that readers actively make meaning, suggests that different readers may
read the same text quite differently. (Tyson 154).

In fact, reader-response theorists believe that even the same reader reading the same text
on two different occasions will probably produce different meanings because so many variables
contribute to our experience of the text. Knowledge we’ve acquired between our first and
second reading of a text, personal experiences that have occurred in the interim, a change in
mood between our two encounters with the text, or a change in the purpose for which we’re
reading it can all contribute to our production of different meanings for the same text. (Tyson
154).

. In this way, reader-response theory shares common ground with some of the
deconstructionists discussed in the Post-structural area when they talk about "the death of the
author," or her displacement as the (author)itarian figure in the text.

Historical development
 Although literary theory has long paid some attention to the reader's role in creating the
meaning and experience of a literary work, modern reader-response criticism began in
the 1960s and '70s, particularly in the US and Germany. , in work by Norman Holland,
Stanley Fish, Wolfgang Iser, Hans-Robert Jauss, Roland Barthes, and others. Important
predecessors were I. A. Richards, who in 1929 analyzed a group of Cambridge
undergraduates misreadings;
 Louise Rosenblatt, who, in Literature as Exploration (1938), argued that it is important
for the teacher to avoid imposing any "preconceived notions about the proper way to
react to any work

There is no denying that there are several literary theories, which paid some attention to a
specific role of a reader in interpreting the meaning of a piece of literary work. However,
reader-response criticism, as modern literary philosophy emerged between the 1960s and 80s,
particularly in German and the US. The clearly dominated the work of Roland Barthes, Norman
Holland, Wolfgang Iser, Stanley Fish, and many others.

 Reader-response theory recognizes the reader as an active agent who imparts

"real existence" to the work and completes its meaning through interpretation.
Reader- response criticism argues that literature should be viewed as a
performing art in which each reader creates his or her own, possibly unique, text-
related performance.
 Typically, Reader-response criticism revolves around the phenomena ‘Respond to Reading’.
The theory identifies the reader as a significant and active agent who is responsible to impart
the real meaning of the text by interpreting it. The modern school of thought argues on the
existing perception of the literature. According to it, literature is like a performing art that
enables reader creates his own text-related unique performance.

 It stands in total opposition to the theories of formalism and the New Criticism, in
which the reader’s role in re-creating literary works is ignored. New Criticism had
emphasized that only that which is within a text is part of the meaning of a text.

It stood against the other theories of New Criticism and formalism, which totally ignored the
reader’s role in re-creating the meaning. New criticism considered that only structure, form,
and content, or whatever is within the text, create the meaning. There was no appeal to the
author’s intention or his authority, nor did it consider the reader’s psychology. None of this
single element was focused on the new critics orthodox.

Tyson (2006) describes in Critical Theory Today the five types of Reader Response theories
and the differences that lie within each. )

Table explanations:

Transactional reader-response theory,

- - analyzes the transaction between the text and reader. Both are seen as equally
important. A reader can take an efferent stance, based on determinant meanings
in a text, or an aesthetic stance, based on determinant and indeterminacy of
meanings.

led by Louise Rosenblatt and supported by Wolfgang Iser, involves a transaction between the
text's inferred meaning and the individual interpretation by the reader influenced by their
personal emotions and knowledge.

Transactional Reader Response Analyzes the transaction between reader and text both the
reader and the text are necessary in the production of meaning As we read, the text acts as a
stimulus to which we respond feelings, associations, and memories all influence the way we
make sense of a text as we read it.

Affective stylistics,

- examines a text in a "slow motion" format, in which each line is studied in order to
determine "how (stylistics) affects (affective) the reader in the process of reading"
 established by Stanley Fish, believe that a text can only come into existence as it is read;
therefore, a text cannot have meaning independent of the reader.

Subjective reader-response theory,

- believes that the readers' responses are the text, and that all meaning of a text lies
in the readers' interpretations.

associated with David Bleich, looks entirely to the reader's response for literary meaning
as individual written responses to a text are then compared to other individual interpretations
to find continuity of meaning.

Psychological reader-response theory,

- analyzes what the readers' interpretations and responses reveal about the reader,
not the text.

employed by Norman Holland, believes that a reader's motives heavily affect how they read,
and subsequently use this reading to analyze the psychological response of the reader.

Social reader-response theory

- believes that readers approach a text with interpretative strategies that are the
products of the "interpretive communities" in which they belong.

is Stanley Fish's extension of his earlier work, stating that any individual interpretation of a text
is created in an interpretive community of minds consisting of participants who share a specific
reading and interpretation strategy.

ASSUMPTIONS

• Readers actively create meaning as they read based on the goals and rules in
which they or their community believe.
• The reader’s response is what counts. We have no way of accurately knowing
what an author intended, and the text is meaningless without a reader.
• Responding to a text is a personal process but it should be shared with others to
enrich another’s response.

METHODOLOGIES

How to do Reader’s Response criticism:

The purpose of a reading response is;

 • examining,
• explaining,
• defending your personal reaction to a text.

Your critical reading of a text asks you to explore:

• why you like or dislike the text;

• explain whether you agree or disagree with the author;
• identify the text’s purpose; and
• critique the text.
There is no right or wrong answer to a reading response. Nonetheless, it is important
that you demonstrate an understanding of the reading and clearly explain and support your
reactions. Do not use the standard approach of just writing: “I liked this text because it is so
cool and the ending made me feel happy,” or “I hated it because it was stupid, and had
nothing at all to do with my life, and was too negative and boring.” In writing a response you
may assume the reader has already read the text. Thus, do not summarize the contents of
the text at length. Instead, take a systematic, analytical approach to the text.

• Write as a Scholar
When writing a reader-response write as an educated adult addressing other adults or
fellow scholars. As a beginning scholar, if you write that something has nothing to do with
you or does not pass your “Who cares?” test, but many other people think that it is important
and great, readers will probably not agree with you that the text is dull or boring. Instead,
they may conclude that you are dull and boring, that you are too immature or uneducated to
understand what important things the author wrote.

• Criticize with Examples

If you did not like a text, that is fine, but criticize it either from:

 principle, for example:

o Is the text racist?
o Does the text unreasonably puts down things, such as religion, or groups of people,
such as women or adolescents, conservatives or democrats, etc?
 o Does the text include factual errors or outright lies? It is too dark and despairing? Is
it falsely positive?
 form, for example:
o Is the text poorly written?
o Does it contain too much verbal “fat”?
o Is it too emotional or too childish?
o Does it have too many facts and figures?
o Are there typos or other errors in the text?
o Do the ideas wander around without making a point?

In each of these cases, do not simply criticize, but give examples. As a beginning scholar, be
cautious of criticizing any text as “confusing” or “crazy,” since readers might simply conclude
that you are too ignorant or slow to understand and appreciate it.

The Structure of a Reader-Response Essay

Choosing a text to study is the first step in writing a reader-response essay. Once you have
chosen the text, your challenge is to connect with it and have a “conversation” with the text.

In the beginning paragraph of your reader-response essay, be sure to mention the following:

 title of the work to which you are responding;

 the author; and
 the main thesis of the text.