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The Reader Response Theory

Reader response theory is a school of literary theory which focuses on the reader and readers
experience during the process of interpreting a text in contrast to other theories which focus on the
text, author, content or form of the text.

Some of the prominent critics in this school of though include Norman Holland, Stanley
Fish, Wolfgang Iser, Hans-Robert Jauss, & Roland Barthes.

Their common belief is that the reader is an active participant who gives existence to the work of
literature by reading it. A piece of literature cannot exist if there is no one to read it.er It stands in
total opposition to the theories of formalism and the New Criticism, in which the reader's role in re-
creating literary works is ignored. New Criticism had emphasized that only that which is within a text
is part of the meaning of a text. No appeal to the authority or intention of the author, nor to
the psychology of the reader, was allowed in the discussions of New Critics.

New Critics Believed that the readers interpretation is not reliable because a single piece of
literature may have different effect on every reader. Reader Response theory is in direct opposition
to the views forwarded by New Critics. The main concept of Reader Response theory is that each
text can have as many interpretations as many readers are there. The text is incomplete without a
reader. A text comes into existence only because of the reader. The Authors intentions are
misleading to judge the worth of a text.

So, some points to remember are

The Reader and text affect each other


The reader and text become partners in producing meaning and in the interpretive
process
Every encounter with literature is different for every person
Within Reader RESPONSE theory there are different approaches. These approaches have some
differences about the role of reader in creating meanings out of the text but their common belief is
that the reader is the most reliable source in giving meaning to a text.

A critic named LOIS TYSON has categorized these approaches into FIVE approaches. Each of
these approaches has a different view about the role of Reader in the interpretation of the text. Let
us first name all of them.
Transactional Reader Response Theory (Louise Rosenblatt, & Wolfgang Iser)
Affective Stylistics (Stanley Fish(

Subjective Reader Response THEORY) David Bleich(


Psychological Reader Response Theory (Norman Holland)
Social Reader Response Theory (Stanley Fish's extension of his earlier work)
Transactional Reader Response Theory (Louise Rosenblatt, &
Wolfgang Iser)
Transaction ka urdu main matlab hota hy souda, ya lain dain, ya do bando k darmyan
jo koi karobar ki gharz sy lain dain hota hybasically lain dain ko e kehty hain
transactionjb ap koi chez purchase krty hain tou wo aik transaction hoti hy between
seller and buyer. In this sense ye jo approach hy ye b yei kehti hy k reader response
theory main transaction hoti hy.
Often associated with the work of Louise Rosenblatt, who formulated many of its premises,
transactional reader-response theory analyzes the transaction between text and reader. How
does this transaction take place? As we read a text, it prompts us to act in our own personal
way. Feelings, associations, and memories occur as we read, and these responses influence the
way in which we make sense of the text as we move through it

Affective Stylistics (Stanley Fish(


This approach was given by Stanley Fish. He believed that a text cannot exist without a reader therefore
a text gives meaning only when it is read by the reader. The effect of a text on reader is focused in this
approach.

Subjective Reader Response THEORY) David Bleich(


This approach was given by David Bleich. It focuses entirely on the response of the reader for the
interpretation of the text but with a few more additions. The response of a single reader about a text is
recorded and then compared with other individual interpretations to find a pattern in the meanings
uncovered by the reader.

Psychological Reader Response Theory (Norman Holland)


This approach was given by Norman Holland. In this approach we study the Psychological effects of
reading a text on a reader. Moreover Norman Holland says that the motivations of a reader heavily
affect how a text is read.

Social Reader Response Theory (Stanley Fish's extension of


his earlier work)
This is the extension of the earlier approach given by Stanley Fish. He says that the readers of a
particular community have a shared interpretation of a text due to their common social background. In
other words, a readers interpretation of a text is influenced by the community in which he lives.
Agar likhna ho tou chahy ye b likh dena
An alternative way of organizing reader-response theorists is to separate them into three groups:
those who focus upon the individual reader's experience ("individualists"); those who
conduct psychological experiments on a defined set of readers ("experimenters"); and those who
assume a fairly uniform response by all readers ("uniformists").

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