Reader Response Theory - a short view - English Literature

1. READER-RESPONSE THEORY
A.Mohanraj M.A., M.Phil., CCFE., (Ph.D)
Assistant Professor of English,
SBK College, Aruppukottai – 626 101.
*Acknowledged – Some points and pictures have been taken from internet sources as I acknowledge them.

10. ‘Do not worry aboutwhat criticssay. What is
your response?’
 Root as early as the 1930s
 The meaning of a text is contained in the text,
and it is not the product of the author or
reader.

12. THE INTENTIONAL FALLACY and
THE AFFECTIVE FALLACY
 INTENTIONAL FALLACY, term used in 20th
century literary criticism to describe
the problem inherent in trying to
judge a work of art by assuming
the intent or purpose of the artist who
created it.
 Introduced by W.K. Wimsatt, Jr., and
Monroe C. Beardsley in The Verbal
Icon (1954),

13. Affective fallacy evaluating a text on the basis
of its emotional effects on a reader

14.  ‘Objectivity of the text is an
illusion’ as Stanley Fish
would say.
 A work is not an achieved
structure of meanings...
the result or the outcome
of the evolving process of
reading.
 The work has no
independent existence.

15.  Readers do not merely consume the texts
passively; instead they are actively involved in
constructing a meaning out of it.
It comes into existence, and acquires life only when
a reader reads. The reader is absent when the writer
writes, and the writer is normally absent when the
reader reads.

16.  Readers can be classified broadly into two the ideal
and the actual. The usual tendency on our part is to
ignore the actual reader, ant then idealise readers.
 Kenneth Burke’s essay ‘Psychology and Form’ is a
good starting point for a discussion on readers and
reading---Different readers have different
expectations from a work and they ask different
questions.

17. IMPLIED READER
 Wolfgang Iser
 As the term suggests, the implied reader
is a hypothetical figure who is likely to
get most of what the author intended.
When authors write, they often do so
with certain readers in mind,
believing that this implied reader will
understand—or at least appreciate—
the metaphors, allusions, ironies, and so
forth.

18. IMPLIED AUTHOR
 Wayne Booth
 The implied author is a concept of
literary criticism developed in the
20th century. Distinct from the
author and the narrator, the term
refers to the "authorial character"
that a reader gathers from a text
based on the way a literary work
is written.

19. COMPETENT READER
 Jonathan Culler
 one who learnt or
mastered the skills
required to understand or
interpret a text. Such as
metaphor, the simile, etc.

20. PHENOMENOLOGICALAPPROACH
 Wolfgang Iser
 meaning is not contained in the text itself, but
generated in the reading process. Meaning is the
result of an interaction between the text and the
reader.

21. AFFECTIVE STYLISTICS
 It is usually associated with Stanley Fish. It is also based on
the assumption that the literary text is not just an object that
exists, but takes its existence from the act of reading.
 Structure of the text as it occurs from moment to moment,
when it undergoes the process of being read. Word-by-word,
or phrase-by-phrase. Another one is travels from one word to
another.

22. Not only do different readers read one and the same
text differently but the same reader may read one and
the same text differently on different occasions. A
text is not a physical object alone, but it is something
like an event, and an interaction with the reader
creates the text.

23. Three types:
 Transactional Reader-response Theory
 Subjective Reader-response Theory
 Psychological Reader-response Theory

24. TRANSACTIONALREADER-RESPONSE
 This theory was originally formulated by Louise Rosenblatt.
 Transaction between the text and the reader – text corrects
our interpretations – our approach should be aesthetic, and
not merely focussing on the facts contained in the text.

25. Wordsworth’s ‘Lucy’
A slumber did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:
She seemed a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.
No motion has she now, no force:
She neither hears nor sees,
Rolled round in earth's diurnal course
With rocks and stones and trees.

26. Two statements, in each stanzas.
I – narrator
She – protagonist (unknown) – assumed Lucy
Stanza one – she is not die
Stanza two – she is dead
The gap between the two stanza filled
by the reader.
Stanza one – she it ‘thing’
Stanza two – she achieved ‘immortality’

27.  Hopkin’s The Windhover
 Edger Allan Poe’s The Purloined Letter
 Henry James’ The Figure in the Carpet

29. SUBJECTIVE READER-RESPONSE
 David Bleich is the major spokesman of this
theory.
 Text guides and controls the reader in the reading
process. The text serves as the base.
 According to him, reading is wholly a subjective
matter – reader’s interpretations create the literary
text. He talks about real and symbolic objects. The
act of reading creates a conceptual, symbolic
world.

30. PSYCHOLOGICAL READER-RESPONSE
 Norman Holland advanced this theory.
 We do when we read a literary text is not in any
sense different from what we do in a real-life
situation, psychologically speaking.
 Freudian leanings in the use of concepts.

39. *Acknowledged – Some points and pictures have been taken from internet sources as I acknowledge them.