Reader Response Theory

Interpret:

•Swift

•Brooks

•Bloom

•Wilde

•Wright?

Reader Response Theory

•Each reader experiences a text differently

•Analysis should focus on what the text does, not what it means.

•Meaning comes through the reader’s experience of it, not through the text alone.  Without a reader it has no meaning.

•Texts have gaps that readers have to fill in. 

Reader Response Journal

1)Is your response to a text the same as its meaning?

2)Can a text have an infinite number of meanings?

3)Are some responses to a text more valid than others?

4)Why do some readers have the same responses?

•How would a reader response theorist answer your journal questions?

1)Is your response to a text the same as its meaning?

–Yes, because process is meaning.

2)Can a text have an infinite number of meanings?

–There are two schools of thought within Reader Response Theorists:

•Most say that the reader is guided by the text and so while there are many possible meanings, some meanings simply can’t come from the text.

•Subjective Reader Response Theorists says that the reader is the absolute creator of meaning… thus there are an infinite number of meanings.

3)Are some responses to a text more valid than others?

–A reader who is fluent in the language of literature and educated in strategies for interpretation is more qualified to make meaning.

4)Why do some readers have the same responses?

–We share common interpretive strategies.

–We see our own identities and issues in a text.  Many people have common identities and issues.

•Reader Response Journal #3

•When there is an A in the sky, each character interprets it differently.  Choose two different characters and explain how their context, identity and issues influence their interpretation.

•Hawthorne doesn’t tell the reader how to interpret the A.  How do you interpret it?  How do your context, identity and issues influence your meaning?  Make a graphic.

•Hawthorne also doesn’t tell us how to interpret Pearl.  Make a graphic.