Reader Oriented Criticism based on the approach of transactional theory by Blanett

1. Transactional Reader-ResponseTheory

2.  Transactional reader-response theory, 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.
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reader-
response_

3.  Often associated with the work of Louise Rosenblatt, who formulated
many of its premises, transactional reader-response theory analyzes the
transaction between text and reader.
 In the 1930s, Rosenblatt, literary theorist, author, scholar, and
professor of literacy, further developed Richards’s earlier assumptions
concerning the contextual nature of the reading process.She asserts that
both the reader and the text must work together to produce meaning.
 Rosenblatt does not reject the importance of the text in favor of the
reader; rather she claims that both are necessary in the production of
meaning. She differentiates among the terms text, which refers to the
printed words on the page; reader; and poem, which refers to the literary
work produced by the text and the reader together.
 Unlike the New Critics, she shifts the emphasis of textual analysis
away from the text alone and views the reader and the text as partners in
the interpretative process. (Tyson 157-158, Bressler 78)

4.  For Rosenblatt, a text is not an autotelic artifact, and
there are no generic literary works or generic readers.
Instead, there are millions of potential individual
readers of the potential millions of individual texts.
 Readers bring their individual personalities, their
memories of past events, their present concerns, their
particular physical condition, and all of their
personhood to the reading of a text.
 Rosenblatt asserts the validity of multiple
interpretations of a text shaped not only by the text
but also by the reader. (Bressler 78).

5.  The Reader,TheText, the Poem, written by Rosenblatt,
was published in 1978 and became a pivotal force in
helping to cause a paradigm shift in the teaching of
literature by changing the focus from the text alone to
a reader’s individual response to a text as a key
element in the interpretive process.
 According to Rosenblatt, the reading process involves
both a reader and a text.The reader and the text
participate in or share a transactional experience:The
text acts as a stimulus for eliciting various past
experiences, thoughts, and ideas from the reader,
those found in both our everyday existence and in
past reading experiences. (Bressler 78-79).

6.  Through this transactional experience, the reader and
the text produce a new creation, a poem. For
Rosenblatt and many other reader-oriented critics, a
poem is defined as the result of an event that takes
place during the reading process, or what Rosenblatt
calls the “aesthetic transaction”.
 A poem is created each time a reader transacts with a
text, whether this transaction is a first reading or any
one of countless rereading of the same text. For
Rosenblatt, readers read in one of two ways:
efferently or aesthetically. (Bressler 79).

7.  When we read for information, we are engaging
in efferent reading. During this process, we are
interested only in newly gained information.
When we read efferently, we are motivated by
specific needs to acquire information.
 When we engage in aesthetic reading, we
experience the text.We note its every word, its
sounds, its patterns, and so on.
 When reading aesthetically ,we involve
ourselves in an elaborate give-and-take
encounter with the text. (Bressler 79).

8.  In order for the transaction between text and
reader to occur, our approach to the text
must be, in Rosenblatt’s words, aesthetic
rather than efferent.When we read in the
efferent mode, we focus just on the
information contained in the text.Without
the aesthetic approach, there could be no
transaction between text and reader to
analyze. (Tyson 158).

9.  “The playwright is nothing without his audience. He is one
of the audience who happens to know how to speak”
Arthur Miller (1915-2005)
 Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” (1949) is a play
about a travelling salesman who kills himself so that his
son will receive his life-insurance money.This is an
example of an efferent reading of the text.
 Willy Loman’s plight is powerfully evoked by the contrast
between his small house and the large, orange-colored
apartment buildings that surround it.This is an example of
an aesthetic reading of the text. (Tyson 158)

10.  In “Death of a Salesman” we might say, for example,
that the text’s determinate meaning includes the fact
thatWilly habitually lies to Linda about his success on
the job, about how well liked he is, and about how
important his role in the company has been.
 The play’s indeterminacy includes issues such as
how much (or how little) of the truth Linda knows
about her husband’s career, at what point she realizes
the truth (if ever she does), and why she doesn’t let
Willy tell her the truth about his shortcomings when
he tries to do so. (Tyson 159).

11.  What differentiates Rosenblatt’s and all reader-
oriented critics from other critical approaches
(especially New Criticism) is their purposive shift
in emphasis away from the text as the sole
determiner of meaning.
 No longer is there one correct interpretation and
no longer is the reader passive. On the contrary,
the reader is an active participant along with the
text in creating meaning. It is from the literacy
experience that meaning evolves. (Bressler 79-
80).

12.  Second group of reader-oriented critics follow
Rosenblatt’s assumption that the reader is
involved in a transactional experience when
interpreting a text. Both the text and the reader
play somewhat equal parts in the interpretative
process. For them, reading is an event that
culminates in the creation of the poem. Many
adherents in this group –Wolfgang Iser, Hans
Robert Jauss, Roman Ingarden – are often
associated with phenomenology. (Bressler 83).

13.  Phenomenology is a modern philosophical tendency that
emphasizes the perceiver. For phenomenologists, objects
can have meaning only if an active consciousness (a
perceiver) absorbs or notes their existence. In other words,
objects exist if we register them in our consciousness.
 Rosenblatt’s definition of a poem directly applies this
theory.The true poem can exist only in the reader’s
consciousness, not on the printed page. When a reader
and text transact, the poem and, therefore, meaning are
created; they exist only in the consciousness of the reader.
(Bressler 84).


14.  Reading and textual analysis now become an
aesthetic experience, in which both the reader
and the text combine in the consciousness of the
reader to create the poem. So, the reader’s
imagination must work, fill in the gaps in the
text and conjecture about characters’ actions,
personality traits, and motives.The ideas and
practices of two-reader-oriented critics, Jauss
and Iser, serve to illustrate phenomenology’s
methodology. (Bressler 84).

15.  LoisTyson. (2006). CriticalTheoryToday. A
User-FriendlyGuide. Reader Response
Criticism. Ch 6. P. 169-208.