Sunday, December 29, 2019

Essay on Reader Response Criticism - 976 Words

Fish’s Reader Response Criticism is composed of two interdependent ideas: first, that the meaning of texts is shaped by the reading experience itself, and second, that these meanings cannot be judged to be correct or incorrect, but merely belonging to one â€Å"interpretive community† or another. The first idea may be identified as the executive aspect of Reader Response Criticism because it analyzes the act of reading, while the second idea is the epistemological aspect of the theory because it circumscribes the knowledge we can acquire about a text to the merely relative. Studied independently, each aspect of Reader Response Theory offers by itself strong arguments countervailing the formalist stance of the New Critics. But as we will see,†¦show more content†¦This excerpt begins at the level of innate human concepts (flesh) and proceeds through the more concrete level of medical terminology (muscles, blood, epidermis) and onwards through an evocative metapho r (red cloud). Before the reader reaches the final clause (â€Å"whose soul is lightning†), he has built up an expectation that a culminating trope will be used to close the sentence, as is usual. Instead, the fragment ends with â€Å"whose soul is lightning† which refers not to the red cloud, but to â€Å"the flesh itself.† In other words, the red cloud is not the object of the concluding clause, but a â€Å"psychological multiplier:† the reader sees a red cloud (associated with storms) and then sees lightning exacerbated by the immediately preceding image. Now the reader possesses a clear mental picture of the passionate flesh, but the strange syntax (both in French and English) leaves him uncertain about what exactly the text has said: is lightning the soul of the flesh? Is the soul the lightning emitted by the flesh? This is an important point—is the soul passion? Or is passion simply one of several manifestations of the soul? Yourcenar has d eliberately shrouded this discussion in complex syntax because the distinction itself confounds us. If you are lost as to what exactly the text says right now, Yourcenar has achieved her aim. Now take a look at Grace Frick’s artful translation of the same text: The flesh itself, that amazing instrument of muscles, blood, and skin, thatShow MoreRelatedEssay on Reader Response Criticism of All Bears717 Words   |  3 Pagesauthor is often not over their shoulder interpreting the text as he or she meant it to come across. The readers are usually equipped with their own previous knowledge, as well as society biases based on his or her previous life experiences. Solely from the use of these tools, as well as the reader’s vocabulary, will a reader interpret the words in front of him or her. Reader Response Criticism argues this very point. The point of any piece should be subjective, as in, it should give everyone theRead MoreEssay on Reader Response Criticism to Gods Determinations607 Words   |  3 Pages Reader Response Criticism to Gods Determinationsnbsp;nbsp; For the reader demanding either rational sense or aesthetic pleasure from poetry, reading the preface to Edward Taylors Gods Determinations is humbling in ways unintended by the 17th century Puritan minister and poet. Rationality per se seems rejected at the start, where we are asked first to comprehend Infinity, and then to envision it (everything) beholding all things(also everything). Things get no clearer as weRead More Essay on Camus’ The Stranger (The Outsider): Reader Response Criticism2226 Words   |  9 PagesReader Response Criticism to Camus’ The Stranger (The Outsider)  Ã‚        Ã‚  Ã‚   In The Stranger (The Outsider), Albert Camus anticipates an active reader that will react to his text. 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First, he establishes what a zero-degree narratee (or possessor of a minimum number of specific narratee characteristics identified by Prince) is and is not: A narratee is not the actual reader, the implied reader, or the ideal reader. The narratee is beholden to the narrator, because, Without the assistance of the narrator, without his explanations and the information supplied by him, the narratee is able neither to interpret the value of an action or to

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