“How do readers feel about what they read?” (Tyson 161).
Description of Theory:
Reader-Response theory focuses on the individual reaction and interpretation of a text by the reader as it is proposed that only the reader can give a text sufficient meaning. Each and every reader will interpret a text differently between readings depending on their intellect or knowledge of the history of which the text describes, mood, personal experiences, ideologies, and culture.
Benefit of Theory:
The text forces the reader to look beyond its words and search for the deeper meaning. As each reader interprets differently groups of readers form connections and understandings based on each other’s perspectives. As well perspectives will change over time and therefore making meaning unstable.
Disadvantage of Theory:
This theory is too subjective because it focuses on the reader’s interpretation therefore reader’s bias and ignores the actual meaning of the text (if there is one), meaning the reader can misinterpret the text and if the reader knows the author’s interpretation then the reader may not believe it, find fault in it, or completely disregard it.
Questions of Reader-Response Theorists to Interpret a Text:
These questions are important because different perspectives will help enlighten different aspects of the story that would not be seen if not from a certain point of view.
- Where does the text have gaps of missing information “indeterminacy” in the story that causes the reader to have to fill in themselves?
- At what points is a reader most connected to a text? Why?
Notable Theorist/s:
Louise Rosenblatt coined Transactional Reader-Response Criticism. She deemed that both the text and the reader are equally needed to form meaning. She is profound like other critics in her area in the belief that between the reader and the text occurs a “transaction” based on personal associations. Readers use past experiences to base expectations of what is forthcoming in the text. The transactional process allows readers to create interpretations by using not only personal connection, but the aesthetic response of all five senses and emotion.