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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