Reader Response Theory

-The reader’s reaction to literature – how the reader might interpret the text
-Post-structuralism (death of the author)
-READER AS ESSENTIAL IN LITERATURE
-READERS AS ACTIVE (they make meaning of the text!)
-So, how do you, the reader, influence the text you’re reading?
Sex, age, gender, ID, background, ability…
-Is your opinion representative of a certain “profile”?
-Is there an implied reader?
-ORIGINS
Louise Rosenblatt (1904-2005)
But also: what about previous
influences? Think of Plato, Aristotle, the
Romantics… what did they say about
rhetoric and persuasion?

Is the act of reading an interaction or a transaction?
FORMALISM
• Literature as autonomous
• Scientific approach aiming towards objectivity
• OBJECT OF STUDY: objective verbal structures
• OBJECT OF ANALYSIS: purely literary elements

PHENOMENOLOGY
• From the Greek phaninomenon “appearance”
• Focuses not on the external, objective
existence of an object BUT on how these
objects appear to the human subject.
• The only thing the human subject can be certain
of is the nature of our perception, our
subjective construction of the world.
• In a way, the object is inexistent without a
subjective apparatus to give it shape and
meaning.
• How the object experienced translates into human
language will determine the meaning of the world
for cultures at large.
• Perceptions themselves are multiple and different.
• The text IS and BECOMES through the reader. It is the
reader that fuses the text with meaning, and the text which,
at the same time, ‘changes’ the reader.
• Experience of the reader as essential. Experience can be
classified into several categories:
– Social & cultural (gender, class, race, religion, ethnicity,
education)
– Geographical
– Historical
– Personal, etc.

Louise Rosenblatt (1904-2005)
A novel or poem or play remains merely
inkspots on paper until a reader
transforms them into a set of
meaningful symbols

THE TRANSACTIONAL MODEL
Applies phenomenology to the act of reading
● There is no single, correct way in which to
read a text.
● Texts are never read in the same way.
● Every reader brings his/her own
experience
● The meaning of the text will depend on
the reader’s stances on the text.

THE TRANSACTIONAL MODEL: THE READERS’ STANCES
EFFERENT STANCE
The information that is
extracted from the text.
Abstracting out and
structuring ideas,
information, conclusions… in
an analytical way.
“The distinction between aesthetic and nonaesthetic reading, then,
derives ultimately from what the reader does, the stance that he
adopts and the activities he carries out in relation to the text. At
the extreme efferent end of the spectrum, the reader disengages
his attention as much as possible from the personal and qualitative
elements in his response to the verbal symbols; he concentrates on
what the symbols designate, what they may be contributing to the
end result that he seeks – the information, the concepts, the guides
to action, that will be left with him when the reading is over.”
AESTHETIC STANCE
The experience of reading
through which the subject
explores both the text and
him/herself.
Feelings, ideas, situations,
tensions, conflicts…
“At the aesthetic end of the spectrum, in contrast, the reader’s
primary purpose is fulfilled during the reading event, as he fixes his
attention on the actual experience he is living through. This permits
the whole range of responses generated by the text to enter into
the center of awareness, and out of these materials he selects and
weaves what he sees as the literary work of art.”

Not so much about the response of a particular reader, but rather, the
response of the general public during a particular historical period or moment
THE READER IS CONCEPTUALISED AS A COLLECTIVE WHOLE
Emerges in 1960s –think of all the political and social movements of the time!
How can we get evidence of reception of a “collective whole”?
Newspapers, journals, reviews, formal and informal letters… whatever
evidence of reception may be scattered and gathered

The readers create a text as they read it
How does style affect the reader? How the succeeding
words and sentences develop a response in the reader
Interpretation is the product of intrepretive
communities – group of informed, linguistically-
competent readers who read and make meaning based
on assumptions and strategies that they hold in
common
• Denies the existence of an individual, subjective
response, because we all have internalized
interpretations and interpretative strategies based
on assumptions we have in common.
• A reader does not make an individual response that
is negotiated with other personal responses.
Instead, the reader makes a response that is the
product of a wider community of readers who
share certain assumptions about how a text is read.
• It is a matter of CREATING the text, in this sense (not
interpreting it).

• Still places some importance on AUTHORIAL INTENT
• Our only certainty comes from our experience of the
object
• A literary work involves the intention of the writer’s
consciousness. This aesthetic effort is then re-experienced
in the consciousness of the reader.
• The text bears an implied reader that handles, drives and
predisposes the reader. A critical reader will then bring in
his/her personal qualities to RESPOND to the IMPLIED
READER
ACTUAL READER vs. IMPLIED READER