"See Mom and Dad, my opinion does matter damn it!"

If we lived in a magical world where Reader-Response theory and New Criticism took human form and they were both beautiful woman, I think I would've asked Reader-Response theory to be my Valentine last Wednesday. She finds values my option more then New Criticism, she doesn't care about my interpretation of a text at all.

Joking aside I genuinely enjoyed both workshops tremendously. I though they complimented each other so well when taught back to back. As a few people mentioned in class the other day, the workshop on Reader-Response theory actually helped some of us (including myself) better understand New Criticism.

New Criticism asks its readers to analyze a text completely subjectively, that any assumptions or interpretations made by the reader outside of the text are relatively unimportant. In contrast, a fundamental attribute of Reader-Response theory is that it is actually impossible to read a text completely subjectively. I tend to lean towards Reader-Response theory on this regard, no matter how much one tries to be subjective I feel like so many things - life experiences, our friends, our religion, our political ideology, who were dating, etc., you name the variable - subconsciously influence how we interpret a text. I think rather then trying to suppress our inherent biases (for lack of a better word), why not, to an extent, embrace them when analyzing a text? For me it makes the text more interesting to read sometimes, it makes me feel engaged, thinking my opinion is important to the texts interpretation. In that regard what Dr. Knapp said about how Reader-Response theory make a reader more aware of themselves outside of the reading, really resonates with me.         

Image Credit: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ct4I0QEWEAAau9U.jpg

All readers?

“In any case, all readers come to the text already predisposed to interpret it in a certain way based on whatever interpretive strategies are operating for them at the time they read” (Tyson, 177)

Questions among Answers

In Reader Response Criticism, Lois Tyson writes that "[a] written text is not an object, despite its physical existence, but an event that occurs within the reader, whose response is of primary importance in creating the text."
Do authors write pieces of literature for themselves or for their audience? If it becomes just for the audience does that make the piece better or worse in the long run?

The Ball Poem and other reading mistakes

      I find myself still thinking back on The Ball Poem, and of course the outlandish reading of it. But what really gets to me is the thought that in some instance I’ve probably done the same thing, if not quite to the same extent. To me, one of the most beautiful things about poetry is that it can mean so much in so few words. This poses another problem though, so much is left unsaid and we oftentimes make it our own. In all honesty I don’t think it’s a bad thing. There are poems I’ve read dozens of time and I’m always finding something new in them, something new in myself. We all share this collective consciousness, a conglomeration of ideas and notions, and we use it to read beyond ourselves, within ourselves. Maybe I’m too young to understand all of what that means, but I must remember to “let be be finale of seem” (The Emperor of Ice Cream, Wallace Stevens). To me this line has meant letting go, acceptance, remembering, and so much more than I could ever put into words. Just one line from the hundreds of poems I’ve read, and I think about it all the time its meaning changing with me over the years.  Perhaps this is the beauty of reader-response theory; the ability to make our own readings more real and better understood.

A Therapy Session Starts With Opening up a Book

From the “Reader – response criticism” by Tyson, I found the psychological theory to be the most intriguing. This is the idea that a reader interprets a text as a means for resolving their issues. For example, a critic of this theory (Holland) believes that the “coping process is interpretation,” which has a goal to “fulfill our psychological needs and desires” (174). This approach seems like a therapeutic way to interpret characters and events by projecting our thoughts and problems onto them; ultimately, aiming at a way to cope with our predicaments. This method would be useful in gaining practice on thinking more in depth and acquiring a deeper understanding for why certain characters do the things that they do.

Even though this method can be beneficial to the reader, is it possible that the reader can get carried away? If the reader just interprets the text through their emotions, could their interpretation stray from allowing the text to be a blueprint for their analysis? If so, a psychoanalyst would be breaking some of the big fundamental rules of reader-response criticism, such as the importance of both the reader and the text working together to form an analysis.

                                          From the text to the reader:

                                            https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https://media.tenor.com/images/c7fcfc1d8962c8fb4fb9675734f15b10/tenor.gif&imgrefurl=https://tenor.com/search/that-feel-gifs&h=124&w=220&tbnid=W9wJbqXuVjegaM:&tbnh=124&tbnw=220&usg=__ToKfQ1R7M37wK1e9r90HsfDy2zU%3D&vet=1&docid=fnijf70IixLqHM  

Your Opinion Matters

When compared to New Criticism, reader response theory (in particular transactional reader-response theory) is not actually all that different. Louise Rosenblatt, who is often associated with this particular type of reader-response theory, does not disregard the text completely; in fact, she thinks it is an important factor in analyzing literature. The difference between New Criticism and reader-response theory is that the former chooses to focus only on the text is telling us, and not what the reader interprets. Rosenblatt "claims that both are necessary in the production of meaning," (Tyson, 165). We as readers use what the text tells us, plus our own experiences, in order to discover the meaning of a piece. These experiences could be anything, from something that happened to us long ago right down to the mood or environment we are in while reading the text. Reader-response theory calls for the reader to immerse themselves in what they are reading, rather than just letting the text speak on it's own.

Day of the Poem?

In Louise M. Rosenblatt's The Poem as Event, she makes the statement that a poem, "must be thought of as an even in time. It is not an object or an ideal entity. It is an occurrence," which was confusing. How can a poem be an event in time? Writing can represent an event in time, but do you think it could really be an even itself?

Photo: https://images.pexels.com/photos/273011/pexels-photo-273011.jpeg?w=1260&h=750&auto=compress&cs=tinysrgb

Wait, Why Not?

               When we went over Reader Response Theory in class this past week I began to be more and more curious about something. What is an interpretation that is typically non-refuted in a piece of classic literature that you disagree with? From Catherine Linton’s disputed ‘ghost’ in Wuthering Heights to the debate on whether Sethe’s baby in Beloved is a supernatural entity or a painful memory brought to life by surviving trauma in a terrible era; what is something that is generally interpreted that you just can’t get on board with?

               I’m mostly interested in this question because I think that when we are starting to really analyze literature at a young age we see interpretations that our teachers simply won’t let us disagree with. Is there only one correct interpretation within the view of Reader Response Theory? Has there been a time where you believe you have found irrefutable textual evidence of a theory and you have been put down because it isn’t “correct”?

Source: https://giphy.com/gifs/spinning-top-inception-9mmWez1yhWNXO

Our Interpretive Sage is Somewehere, Buried Deep Inside

Reader-Response theory is a fascinating parallel to New Criticism. Where new critics strive to immortalize a text in time, isolated by itself without any individual opinionated interpretation, reader-response theorists seek to understand the value of the varying views that comes from each and every reader, perhaps at the cost of the exactness New Criticism brings forth. Everyone has different backgrounds, yet we are all united in the process of understanding a written work. Our own results from the Rosenblatt experiment prove that we each have an interpretive pattern that we follow unconsciously, and I found it interesting that whether or not we took the leap from the concrete and literal to the abstract and metaphorical, we all sensed that there was something duplicitous about Frost's poem. I feel like this shows the merit of Reader-Response Theory; New Criticism may appreciate and closely read into whatever text it studies, but it cannot account for the unavoidable thinking process every reader undergoes when they are set before a written work. Readers can reach far or go nowhere at all, but the text remains a jumping point for critical thought and questioning, which is truly the most any writing can ask for.

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Everyone's a critic. (But actually)

In Rosenblatt's The Poem as Event, she details the varying responses to the same Robert Frost quatrain that we read. One response reads:

"However, after a moment or two, the implied stage begins clearly to represent the world, and the actors, the world's population"; "On second thought, play metaphor—'all the world's a stage'—Life goes on in spite of quarreling, but it won't if the 'lighting' (moral? spiritual?) fails . . . Anyway, war, disagreement, etc., don't matter so much—so long as we still have the 'light' (sun—source of light—nature? God?)."

Later on in Rosenblatt's piece, she quotes a reader who claims the third line—"The only thing I worry about is the sun"—as a harbinger for the H-bomb. To me, though it may be a product of my own biased response as a reader, those explanations near the same uncontrolled and unkempt territory of that WWII interpretation of "The Ball Poem", read by Tim in a show of masterful elocution.

Looking for Alex's point like

Source: http://i.imgur.com/7PhLQGY.gif

Do we reward readers for those ultimate interpretations of a text?
("Ultimate" seemed the best word to illustrate that strange amalgamation of a response that is at once expansive, global, consequential, grand, etc.)

Obviously there is no achievable answer that is 100% right or 100% wrong in a reader's critical response, but it seems that at least in an academic environment—the study that Rosenblatt cites, the now-infamous "The Ball Poem" response, or even my own response to the Frost quatrain—we readers seek to over-perform. Question #2: WHY???