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 “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, the application of Fish’s theory as a whole creates distinct interpretive communities which can be judged for their relative truth values, which leads to a contradiction: if one interpretive community is closer to “the truth” than another, then either the executive theory is wrong because an objective text exists, or the concept of interpretive community is irrelevant because we can make value judgments about a particular interpretation. At any rate, logic dictates that Fish’s theory be internally consistent, and as shown below, this is simply not the case.
We will show how Fish's theory defeats itself by applying it to a curious fragment from Marguerite Yourcenar's Mémoires d'Hadrien, a long, imagined meditation from the dying Roman emperor Hadrian. In the original French, Yourcenar writes,
La chair elle-même, cet instrument de muscles, de sang, et d’épiderme, ce rouge nuage dont l’âme est l’éclair.
It is possible to provide a word-for-word translation with no loss of specificity:
The fl...
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...through a simple misunderstanding extract such a thing as an incorrect meaning from a text. Hence we have found Fish's “disappearing” text, a thing apart from the reader. Secondly, we have used different understandings of a text to synthetically create two antagonistic interpretive communities which we have been able to judge absolutely. The feasibility of this judgment refutes Fish's argument that literary criticism should be confined to creating and grouping interpretations, but not judging them. In effect, we have shown that the tools of executive Reader Response Criticism allow us to judge the interpretive communities created by the epistemological Reader Response Theory. We have not proven that either aspect of the theory is unviable, but we have discovered that Reader Response Theory is an incoherent whole, unable to accommodate its overreaching constituents.
K. M.’s introductory paragraph opens stating that “Readers are like fish.”(Weiland, 1) With such an accusation to the reader, most people would
What do these details tell you about the writer’s assumptions about the knowledge and experience of readers?
In his essay “Disliking Books,” he examines the standard that many teachers hold. The author believes that the view of other teachers is that “leaving me alone with literary texts themselves, uncontaminated by the interpretations and theories of professional critics would enable me to get on the closest possible terms with those texts” (Graff 26). Teachers, as Graff believes, leave their students with only their own interpretations and perspectives on a text. This does not encourage learning or critical thinking, but hinders students’ abilities to improve and develop ideas their own. Without guidance, students cannot delve deeper into the subjects in which they are learning. Alternatively, in his “Other Voices, Other Rooms,” Graff reveals isolation in perspective of teachers through his own experience with teachers holding opposing viewpoints and theorizes “teachers in modern periods need nonmodernists (and vice versa) in order to make their subjects intelligible to their students” Graff 340). Hence, without elaborating on a subject from all possible viewpoints, a student will have a limited understanding of what it is and how to apply it in their life. Each student will take a different standpoint on what is said, and if they disagree, it will slip through their
In chapter five of Suitably Modern, Mark Liechty discusses the action of “doing fashion” and how it affects the middle class and consumption in Kathmandu. Chapter five poses the question; what is new and what is not? This concerns the class distinctions and if modernization is actually occurring. The middle class in Kathmandu is claiming its own domain through clothing and ostracizing themselves. The author deems this action as adornment he defines it by stating, “It is used to set individuals and groups apart from some and to signal sameness”. Adornment can be a class distinction but also a gender role distinction. Women practice adornment to be indifferent in their relationships with men. For example women can chose to use flashier make-up which can distinguish a married woman from an unmarried woman. Liechty associates fashion with freedom. Film coming to Kathmandu quickly generated the modernization of fashion and consumption. Films exposed the residents to different types of fashion. Ultimately, the middle class wants its own cultural zone; through fashion and consumption it hopes to completely fit in with one another and still be distinct from other classes.
Parker, Robert Dale. How to Interpret Literature: Critical Theory for Literary and Cultural Studies. New York: Oxford, 2011. Print.
8. Edmondson, J. C., and MyiLibrary. “Augustus”. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009. eBook Academic Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 4 May 2014.
In the article “Reading and Thought” the author Dwight MacDonald provides criticism and disagreement with Henry Luce’s idea of “functional curiosity”. Luce developed the term “functional curiosity” defining it as an eagerness of people to know the latest news happening around the world. On the other hand, MacDonald concludes that functional curiosity only strengthens reader’s practice in reading rather than in providing invaluable information. He underlines that literature nowadays is deficient and insubstantial since there is no deep meaning in the texts. Modern printed literature is simply being skimmed through by the reader as the reader nowadays tends to avoid too much information resisting thinking in such a way. Because of the new nature of the printed materials, MacDonald considers today’s reading behavior and the way people think as flimsy and indifferent. I agree that our thought has definitively changed since we are paying less time to serious critical thinking losing connections with society and awareness of it.
Haas and Flower created an interesting point when I read “Rhetorical Reading Strategies and the Construction of Meaning “. In the reading, Haas and Flower, provided multiple propositions to apply, however a key one certainly caught my eye. Haas and Flower proposed various arguments, yet their main idea implied that there needs to be an increase in rhetorical reading. I came to the conclusion that increasing rhetorical reading was their main point due to a statement in the text. “We would like to help extend this constructive, rhetorical view of reading, which we share with others in the field…” [Haas and Flower, 167] the following statement blandly states their intention to spread an important strategy, reading rhetorically, among community.
“1.The reader response is what counts. We can’t know for sure what an author intended, and the text itself is meaningless unless a reader responds.
Finally we can say that the discussion in the class and the differences in the interpretations showed us clearly the differences between the perceptions of the readers on the same work. In the lights of the reader-oriented theories one can claim that there is no single truth or meaning derived from the text, the responses will change as the readers change.
Reader-Response theories propose that works of literature exist in a mutual relationship between the reader and author. The meaning that a reader extracts from a text is a simultaneous result of both the author’s intent, and the reader’s interpretation of it (Roberts, 149). With this theory, there is an inherent subjectivity associated with the analysis of any work of literatur. An author may have a specific meaning to the story but another person can read the story and create his or her own interpretation that is just as meaningful as the author’s original ideas. Put another way, meani...
F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, "The reason one writes isn't the fact he wants to say something. He writes because he has something to say." This quote applies directly to Ngugi Wa Thiong’s novel A Grain of Wheat. One could infer from this quote that some writers write not just for the enjoyment derived from it, but rather out of a feeling of obligation to let readers hear what they may have to say. Ngugi’s message that he feels obligated to convey is delivered, however, he uses a very unusual writing technique to arrive there. He wants the readers to understand the pain, suffering, and confusion that took place during the Emergency. Through jumbled chronological order, numerous character and point of view changes, and a powerful conclusion, Ngugi relays his message with immense authority.
In their essay, ‘The Intentional Fallacy’ (1946), William K. Wimsatt Jr. and Monroe C. Beardsley, two of the most eminent figures of the New Criticism school of thought of Literary Criticism, argue that the ‘intention’ of the author is not a necessary factor in the reading of a text.
Literature is an intricate art form. In order to attempt to understand the meanings and ideas within literary work, there are many forms of criticism that propose different approaches to its interpretation. Each criticism is crucial to the understanding of how individuals interpret literary works. Since each criticism has a different approach to enrich the understanding literary works, the question is raised whether one criticism should be used over others, whether a certain combination of criticisms should be used, or whether all criticisms should be taken into account. This may all be dependent on the reader’s individual preference or opinion, but each criticism presented builds on the others to create a well-rounded and unique understanding
understanding the work based on what the author wanted to say instead of thinking about