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Reader Response Theory

Reader response stresses the importance of the reader's role in interpreting texts. Rejecting
the idea that there is a single, fixed meaning inherent in every literary work, this theory holds
that the individual creates his or her own meaning through a "transaction" with the text based
on personal associations. Because all readers bring their own emotions, concerns, life
experiences, and knowledge to their reading, each interpretation is subjective and unique.
Many trace the beginning of reader-response theory to scholar Louise Rosenblatt's influential
1938 work Literature As Exploration. Rosenblatt's ideas were a reaction to the formalist
theories of the New Critics, who promoted "close readings" of literature, a practice which
advocated rigid scholarly detachment in the study of texts and rejected all forms of personal
interpretation by the reader. According to Rosenblatt, the New Critics treated the text as "an
autonomous entity that could be objectively analyzed" using clear-cut technical criteria.
Rosenblatt believed instead that "the reading of any work of literature is, of necessity, an
individual and unique occurrence involving the mind and emotions of some particular reader
and a particular text at a particular time under particular circumstances.
Impact on teaching literature
Over the last several decades, reader-response techniques have become firmly established in
American classrooms. Language arts teachers at all levels now widely accept central tenets of
the theory, particularly the notion that learning is a constructive and dynamic process in
which students extract meaning from texts through experiencing, hypothesizing, exploring,
and synthesizing. Most importantly, teaching reader response encourages students to be
aware of what they bring to texts as readers; it helps them to recognize the specificity of their
own cultural backgrounds and to work to understand the cultural background of others.
Using reader response in the classroom can have a profound impact on how students view
texts and how they see their role as readers. Rather than relying on a teacher or critic to give
them a single, standard interpretation of a text, students learn to construct their own meaning
by connecting the textual material to issues in their lives and describing what they experience
as they read. Because there is no one "right" answer or "correct" interpretation, the diverse
responses of individual readers are key to discovering the variety of possible meanings a
poem, story, essay, or other text can evoke.
Students in reader-response classrooms become active learners. Because their personal
responses are valued, they begin to see themselves as having both the authority and the
responsibility to make judgments about what they read. (This process is evident in the video
programs, when students are asked to choose a line of poetry and explain why it is important
to them.) The responses of fellow students also play a pivotal role: Through interaction with
their peers, students move beyond their initial individual reaction to take into account a
multiplicity of ideas and interpretations, thus broadening their perspective.
Reader Response Literary Criticism
In the reader response critical approach the primary focus falls on the reading rather than on
the author or the text.

Theoretical assumptions:
Literature is a performative art and each reading is a performance. Literature exists
only when it is read; meaning is an event

The literary text possesses no fixed and final meaning. Literary meaning is created by
the interaction of the reader and the text. According Louise Rosenblatt a poem is
what the reader lives through under the guidance of the text.

Main tenets of reader-response theory

Since the ideas underlying reader - oriented theorists are complex and in the field of literary
criticism and theory the study of the act of reading has been referred to by several names like
"reader response criticism", "reception theory " or "audience-oriented criticism" all of which
differ on a given point, it would be better to enumerate here the following tenets which reflect
the main perspectives in the position as a whole:
1. In literary interpretation, it is the reader and not the text, which is the most important
component.
2. In fact, there is no text unless there is a reader, and the reader is the only one who can
say what the text is.
3. The reader creates the text as much as the author does.
How text govern readers:
Focus on how texts guide, constrain, control reading.
Wolfgang Iser argues that the text in part controls the readers responses but
contains gaps that the reader creatively fills.
There is a tension between
the implied reader , who is established by the response-inviting structures of the text
(this type of reader is assumed and created by the work itself)
and the actual reader, who brings his/her own experiences and preoccupations to the
text.
The Implied Reader
The author creates a relationship with a reader and enables him/her to discover the meaning
of the text.
The tone of voice or features of the narrative voice imply what kind of reader - in terms of
knowledge and attitude is addressed, what kind of attention the book is requesting and what
kind of relationship of the narrator and the reader is assumed to be.
For the child- implied reader authors try to reinforce the relationship by a very sharply
focused point of view. (inthe centre of the story is a child)
Techniques
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the author puts him/herself into the narrator (3 person godlike all-seer) or the
1st person child character
the way s/he comments on the events in the story
by the attitude s/he adopts towards his/her characters
Many writers cast their tales in the form of fantasy (with animal-human characters