Reader Response Criticism

 Reader Response Criticism 

-(in U.S/Germany)

(Booth, Bloom, Blatt, Isher, Jauss, Fish)

It focuses on the role of a reader.

It believes that a literary text possesses no fixed meaning.

There is no fixed / universal right meaning of any text.

Meaning and value are transactional, created by interaction of the reader to the text.

It is opposite to Formalism and New Criticism, which ignores reader's role in recreating literary works.

Reader Response system plunges in to "Affective Fallacy” of New criticism.

Its roots: Many classical & medieval writers viewed literature as a branch of Rhetoric, the art of Persuasive speaking or Writing. Romantics stressed the emotional impact of Poetry on the audience.

Symbolism & impression stressed the reader's subjective response on literature and Art.

Hermeneutic theories of Schleiermacher, Heidegger, Gaddamar examines the ways in which readers engaged with lit-texts.

In 1970's - "the Constance school (in Germany) member Isher and Jauss began to formulate a systematic reader response (r) reception theory.

Key Terms:

Interpretative communities: coined Stanley Fish (American)

 In his essay “Interpreting the Variorum” (1970)

 Fish claims that interpretation is influenced by one's Social context.

Horizons of expectations: Coined by H.R. Jauss ( Hans Robert Jauss)

It is a set of cultural norms, assumptions, historical situations of given time, place, and relation to work in relation to readers,

Impiled Reader: coined by W. C. Booth in his “The Rhetoric of fiction”

It is used by Wolf Gang Isher in his book Impiled Reader ((1972)  to describe a hypothetical reader of a text.

Impiled reader incorporates pre structing of potential meaning by the text and readers actualisation through reading.

There is a tension between writer's Subjectivity and reader's subjectivity.

Writer's subjectivity overtakes the reader's mentality.

This tension helps the reader to make sense of text.

Impiled Reader whom he (WC Booth) called an author's Second still self. 

Critics & Works

Louise Rosenblatt: Pioneer of reader response criticism

Her best known book "Literature as Exploration” (1938)

In her essay “Towards a transactional theory of reading” she sums up “A poem is what the reader lives"

“The reader, the text, the poem” (1980)

 

Stanley Eugene Fish: American Academician

Literature in the Reader: Affective stylistics (1977).

Fish says that we must start on own personal our response to literary work in order to understand it.

 Affective stylistics is analysing a literary text in an event that occurs in time - that comes in to being as it is read - rather than an object that exists in space.

He says, 'text can't have meaning independent of the reader.’

The meaning of an utterance is the reader's experience "Is there a text in the class and The authority of· interpretive communities (1980) Says 'It is interpretive communities rather than either text or reader that produce meanings.

Surprised by Sin: the reader in Paradise Lost (1998): is an Example of practical criticism applies to the text of Milton's Paradise Lost.

Save the world on your own time (2005)

“How to write a sentence: And How to read one”

Holfgang Isher  German Scholar

Founder of Constance school together With H. R. Jauss.

 Impiled Reder (1972): Impiled Reader makes expectations, meanings, says two people gazing at the night sky may both be looking at the same collection of stars but one will see plough another a dipper. The stars in a literary text are fixed but the lines that join them are variable.

Literary work has two poles

1.     Artistic pole: Created by the author

 2.  Aesthetic pole: realization by the reader

We can't identify literary work either the text created by author, or the realization of it by reader.

It must lie "half way between the two"

He says that’ texts contains gaps’.

The Act of Reading;  (1976).

In which Isher says “Novel has 4 main perspectives: Those are

Narrator, characters, plot and the factious Reader

Wayne Clayson Booth (American Critic)

He followed "Chicago school' of criticism.

It is also called Neo-Aristotlelianism due to its strong emphasis on Aristotle’s plot, character and genre.

1.     The Ret The Rhetoric of fiction

2.     The Rhetoric of Irony 1974

Rhetoric of Fiction:

In this book he coined the term "Impiled Reader'

He also coined the term "Unreliable Narrator”

Unreliable narrator - The narrator doesn't coincide with other author’s opinions and situations.  The most common kind of unreliable narrators are  the picaro, the madman, the clown, the lier.

In 1983 edition, he outlined various identities of both authors and readers

The Flesh & Blood Author

The craft of Research 1995

The Impiled author

The deller of this tale

The career author ,the career reader

Public myth

Flesh & Blood Recreater.

The Postulated Reader

The Rhetoric of Irony: (1914).

Hans Robert Jauss: German academician ( H- Horizon of expectationR-Reception Theory Jauss).

He is notable for his "Reception theory: derived from the Hermeneutics of  Hans George Gaddamar.

Literary History as A challenge to Literary Theory

 He called for a new approach to literary Studies.

Reception theory: proposed by H R. Jauss in this book. He says that text has objective meaning. no objective meaning".

 Other proponents are Isher, Stuart Hall

The Constance school • Group of 5 professors

1.     Wolf Gang Isher (English) Ⓒ

2.     Wolf Gang Preisendanz (German)

3.     Manfred Fuhrmann (Latin)

4.     Hans Robert Jauss (Romance)

5.     Jurij Striedter (slavic)

Harold Bloom. American literary critic

He wrote more than 40 books.

Best known for his theory of "Anxiety of Influence” (194)

The Anxiety of Influence: A theory of poetry (1973)

 He opines as poets are hindered in their creative process by the ambiguous relationship with precursor poets.

Every poem is a misinterpretation of a parent poem.

Every poet is the poet in a poet.

In literature there is the Influence of Homer on Virgil; Virgil on Milton, Milton on Words Worth, Words Worth on Wallace Steven.

He elaborated the theory in successive books.

1.     Map of Misreading

2.      Kabbalah and Criticism (1975)

3.     Poetry and Repression (1976).

Strong poets Vs Weak poets.

Strong poets feel composition must be autonomous and original perform strong misreading of their precursors.

Weak poets by the influence of Precursor, produces a derivative of old one simply repeat the ideas of their precursors.

 

 He says, “All reading is the misreading”

Norman Holland

1. The Dynamics of literary Response (1965)

 2. Five Readers Reading (1975)

Elizabeth Freud (1987)

“The Return of the Reader: Reader Response criticism"

Susan Suleiman and Inge Crossman

The Reader in the text (1980)

Jane P. Tompkins:

"Reader Response criticism (1980)

Umberto Eco

"The Role of Reader (1979)