vMELC-7-READER-RESPONSE-CRITICISM (1).pdfMELC-7-READER-RESPONSE-CRITICISM (1).pdf

1. READER-RESPONSE CRITICISM
(Tyson 161).

2. Reader-Response Criticism
Reader-Response theory
focuses on the individual
reaction and
interpretation of a text
by the reader as it is
proposed that only the
reader can give a text
sufficient meaning.

3. Reader-
Response
Criticism
Each and every reader will
interpret a text differently
between readings
depending on their
intellect or knowledge of
the history of which the
text describes, mood,
personal experiences,
ideologies, and culture.

4. Reader-Response
Criticism
Reader-response criticism is
a school of literary theory
that focuses on the reader (or
“audience”) and their
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.

5. Reader-
Response
Criticism
Reader-response
theory recognizes the
reader as an active
agent who imparts
“real existence” to the
work and completes
its meaning through
interpretation.

6. Benefit of Theory:
The text forces the reader to look beyond its
words and search for the deeper meaning.
As each reader interprets differently groups
of readers form connections and
understandings based on each other’s
perspectives. As well perspectives will
change over time and therefore making
meaning unstable.

7. Disadvantage of Theory:
This theory is too subjective because it
focuses on the reader’s interpretation
therefore reader’s bias and ignores the actual
meaning of the text (if there is one), meaning
the reader can misinterpret the text and if
the reader knows the author’s interpretation,
then the reader may not believe it, find fault
in it, or completely disregard it.

8. Questions of Reader-Response Theorists to
Interpret a Text:
These questions are important because
different perspectives will help enlighten
different aspects of the story that would not
be seen if not from a certain point of view.

9. Questions of Reader-Response Theorists to
Interpret a Text:
Where does the text have gaps of missing
information “indeterminacy” in the story that
causes the reader to have to fill in
themselves?
At what points is a reader most connected to
a text? Why?

10. Notable Theorist/s:
Louise Rosenblatt coined
Transactional Reader-Response
Criticism. She deemed that
both the text and the reader are
equally needed to form
meaning. She is profound like
other critics in her area in the
belief that between the reader
and the text occurs a
“transaction” based on personal
associations.

11. Notable Theorist/s:
Readers use past experiences
to base expectations of what
is forthcoming in the text.
The transactional process
allows readers to create
interpretations by using not
only personal connection,
but the aesthetic response of
all five senses and emotion.

12. https://www.carleton.edu/departments/ENGL/Alice/CritHist.html#:~:te
xt=The%20historical%20approach%20involves%20understanding,interp
ret%20that%20work%20of%20literature.
https://sites.wp.odu.edu/tatum-fisherengl333/theory-6/
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-
introliterature/chapter/reader-response-criticism-suggested-
replacement/