Anil Awad's Quest For Literature

Friday 10 June 2016

READER RESPONSE CRITICISM By – Anil S Awad



READER RESPONSE CRITICISM
By – Anil S Awad
English NET/SET Consultant
9922113364/9423403368

INTRODUCTION

In traditional criticism, while analyzing a text, the prime focus is on The Author, his background, the Content in the text and the Form of the genre. Who is the author? What is/was his background? What does the author want to convey through the text? What is the theme/motif/meaning/message of the text? What is the form of the literary work of art – is it epic? Lyric? Sonnet? Play? Novel? Or anything else? – All are the parts of Traditional Criticism.
Author, Content and Form – these trios are rejected in Reader-response Criticism and the long awaited Reader found prior place in analyzing the text. A reader – his response to the text, his experiences with the text, his dos and don’ts, his acceptance and rejection, his literary verdicts – all are the part of Reader-response Criticism. No need to think about who was Shakespeare? Just read his plays and respond what you feel about them. Enjoy – You are more important than Shakespeare - A Gift from Reader Response Theory. 

THE ROOTS

The roots of the Reader Response Theories are found in the writings of I A Richards, the Cambridge Scholars, famous for his book Practical Criticism (1929) and Empson's Seven Types of Ambiguities (1930). He also conducted some experiments on undergraduate students and pointed out the misreading and misinterpretations of the texts. For the first time, someone stressed on ‘Close Reading of the Text’ by ignoring the outside effect.  
Louise Rosenblatt, in her ‘Literature as Exploration’ (1938) clearly stated that each reading is ‘a particular event involving a particular reader and a particular text under particular circumstances’. She advised teachers and mentors not to impose preconceived notions about the proper way to react to any work and let the students to find their own way of interpreting a text. Thus, she tried to take the text out of the influence of – Author and his background, and linked it to ‘Particularity’
C. S Lewis in his ‘An Experiment in Criticism’ (1961) stated that the quality of books should be measured NOT by how they are WRITTEN, but by how they are READ. He distinguished two kinds of readers – ‘Unliterary’ and ‘Literary’. For unliterary reader, single reading of a text is enough and he doesn’t take further labor to reinterpret it. ‘I read the text already. I know about it.’ – is his response.  Literary reader rereads the books many times and tries to find out different meanings with different interpretations. He also rejected the idea that a text can be ‘lowbrow’ (low type) and highbrow (high type). It is the Literary Reader who decides the usability of the text. Yes. Right. Rejected stuffs can be more meaningful than the world classic – it depends upon the reader’s reception. 

PIONEERS OF THE READER RESPONSE THEORY - 

1.      Norman Holland – Norman Holland is an American critic, initially concerned to psychoanalysis criticism. 
In his ‘Poems in Persons: An Introduction to the Psychoanalysis of Literature’ he proposes that writers create texts as expressions of their personal identities and readers re-create their own identities when they respond.  He also conducted an experiment – a case study. He gave short stories of Faulkner, Hemingway and others to five students of five different universities and noted their responses. They were varied but up to the point with valid arguments. They responded as per their literary experiences. He writes down all these experiences and experiments in his book – ‘The Nature of Literary Response – Five Readers Reading’ – (1975).  In his ‘Laughing: A Psychology of Humor’ (1982) one’s sense of humor, expresses one’s personal identity. He re-links it to reader’s response to a text.

2.      Stanley Fish – He challenged the authenticity of the text and relocated its meaning outside the text. To know more about Stanley Fish and his interpretation of text, read my article ‘Is there any a text in this class?’ on my blog –

3.      Wolfgang Iser – A famous German Critic. See what he wants to convey about Reader Response Theory –
The dialogue between the reader and the text takes place with first reading. For Iser meaning is an event of construction that occurs somewhere between the text and the reader. Text is a fixed world but meaning is associated to it through act of reading. Here the reader connects the structures of the text to his/her own experiences. Iser gives appropriate example – Watching the stars in the sky at night – different people find different shapes – by connecting the stars with each other by imaginary lines. The same is applicable to the text - the ‘stars’ in the text are fixed, the lines that join them are variable. Here he introduces the concept of ‘Implied Reader’ – a reader capable of modifying the meaning of the text.  The Implied Reader is hypothetical and responsible for structuring the text. The Implied Reader is superior to the Actual Reader who just receives mental images while reading as per his experiences and knowledge. A text is made up of written and unwritten portions within the text itself. The task of implied reader is to unveil the unwritten section – it is just like FILLING THE GAPS. It modifies the text and re-shapes & restructures it. Here Iser wants to convey that a reader (particularly the implied reader) has great influence on the text than the author of the text. Implied reader influences the text, instead of being influenced by it.

4.       Hans Robert Jauss – He is related to Reader Reception Theory. In Reader Reception Theory, the communication models are used to measure the responses and find out the common conclusions that lead to continuity of meaning. It is explained below in details. He is indebted to Hans George Gadmer and his hermeneutics theory (the theory and method of interpreting Biblical/wisdom/philosophical literature/texts).

5.      Roland Barthes – He states that the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of author – in his essay – ‘The Death of the Author’ (1967).   For detail analysis of the essay visit my blog –


READER RESPONSE THEORY – TYPES 

A)    Transactional reader-response theory -   Main proponent - Louise Rosenblatt and Wolfgang Iser.  In this theory there is a contract between the text’s indirect meaning and individual interpretation by the reader as per his/her personal emotions and knowledge.
Take example of any Social Media (Facebook/Twitter) Posts/Comments/Personal Chats – Most of the Facebooker analyses them as per their mood, emotion and knowledge. The person who posts has different intention to convey- [inferred meaning], but it is interpreted [or misinterpreted] as per mood/emotion/knowledge about the subject of the individual Facebooker. Shashi Tharoor’s tweet ‘cattle-class’ and ‘holy cows’ aroused great controversies in 2009 and he had to resign from his Ministry.
B)    Affective Stylistics - Main Proponent – Stanley Fish - He believes that a text can only come into existence as it is read; therefore, a text cannot have meaning independent of the reader. The reader responds to the stylistics elements like figurative language, structure of the text, sound techniques, register in his/her own way. Stylistics Devices are the main concern of Affective Stylistic Reader Response Theory.

C)    Subjective Reader-response Theory - associated to David Bleich, looks entirely to the reader's response for literary meaning.  READER’S RESPONSE IS THE TEXT ITSELF. These responses are gathered together, compared to find similarities and differences. It leads to the continuity of the meaning of the text. 

D)   Psychological Reader-response Theory - 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. The responses by a particular reader about a text reveal more about the reader than the text. Responses are used to categorize the Readers.
For Example – take any text of Shakespeare – Some readers will point out the class-struggle in his plays –Marxists; and some will highlight the suppression of women in the plays – Feminists. Thus the responses categorized the reader, not the text. 
E)     Social reader-response theory - Again Stanley Fish – It is the community that creates the outlook of a particular reader. An individual reader’s response is the representation of the responses by a community. – It is social reader-response theory. 

RECEPTION THEORY

It is associated to Hans-Robert Jauss. Reception theory is a small version of reader response theory that emphasizes etch particular reader’s reception or interpretation in making meaning from a literary text.  It counts audience reception in context of Communication Model.
Stuart Hall, a cultural theorist, developed and modified it for Media and Communication Studies.  He tested the responses by using his model – ‘Encoding/Decoding Model of Communication’. A basic acceptance of the meaning of a specific text tends to occur when a group of readers have a shared cultural background and interpret the text in similar ways.
According to Umberto Eco, a reader’s interpretation is different from the intention of an artist. He calls it aberrant decoding.
 
In short-

Ø  Reception theory measures EACH individual’s response to the text.
Ø  ‘EACH INDIVIDUAL’ is nothing but the people/readers who are chosen for experiment.
Ø  Different communication models are used for experimentation.  *For Example – Hall’s Encoding Decoding Model of Communication.*
Ø  The responses are counted, interpreted and further used to find out common conclusions.
Ø  Cultural background plays important role in such responses. Particular group from particular cultural background is taken to test the response.
Ø  Reception Theory is Limited Version of Reader Response Theory. The main aim is to collect the responses for getting social feedback.

Thanks.
Anil S Awad
English NET/SET Consultant
9922113364/9423403368

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