Reader-Response Criticism

In this essay I discuss three approaches to reader-response criticism and present a method of interacting with a text.

There are two extremes of reader-response criticism.  At one end of the spectrum is the personal, subjective approach--Steven Lynn's "'associative'" approach.¹  From this perspective, what a work means and how well it succeeds depends on the reader.  The problem with this approach is that it leads to relativism because there is no one correct, or logical, interpretation.  Everybody's interpretation of a text is correct, according to subjectivists.  Clearly, however, there may be misinterpretations of a text.

At the other end of the spectrum is the purely objective approach, which Steven Lynn defines as "the 'receptive' version of reader-response criticism."²  From this perspective, there is an ideal response the author encoded in the text that an attentive and informed reader recovers.  The reader's response is not personal, subjective and unique; rather, the reader assumes the role of the implied reader (audience) the author envisioned as he/she wrote the text.  The problem with this approach is that it does not allow for multiple correct interpretations of a text.

When the culture in which the author wrote differs significantly from the reader's, it seems clear that a logical interpretation requires immersion in the author's world--that is in his/her text.  How can we know what response Shakespeare intended if we do not understand fully Shakespeare's culture?  Between the purely subjective and purely objective extremes is an approach that balances both subjectivity (emotions) and objectivity (reason): Steven Lynn's "'interactive' version."³  We respond as ourselves, but we also try to imagine how the author intended his/her readers to respond.  Thus, when reading and writing, we learn things about ourselves, and we learn about other times, places and people.

Reader-response critics of all theoretical persuasions agree to some degree that the meanings of a text are the production or creation of the individual reader.  Thus, there is no one correct meaning for all readers either of the linguistic parts or of the artistic whole.  Where these critics importantly differ is (a) in their views of the primary factors that shape a reader's responses, (b) in the places at which they draw the line between what is objectively given in a text and the subjective responses of an individual reader, and as a result of those differences, (c) in their conclusions about the extent, if any, to which a text controls or constrains a reader's responses, so as to authorize us to reject some interpretations and misreadings, even if,  as almost all reader-response critics assert, we are unable to demonstrate that any one interpretation is correct.

The contemporary German critic Wolfgang Iser believes that a literary text--as a product of the writer's intentional acts--in part controls the reader's responses but always contains a number of gaps or indeterminate elements--for example, figurative language.  The reader must fill in these gaps by way of creative participation with what is actually in the text.  The experience of reading is an evolving process of anticipation, frustration, retrospection, reconstruction and satisfaction.  Iser distinguishes between the implied reader, who is established by the text itself as one who is expected to respond in specific ways to the text, and the actual reader, whose responses are inevitably colored by his/her accumulated private experiences.  As a consequence literary texts permit a range of possible interpretations.  The fact, however, that the author's intentional acts establish limits to the reader's creative additions to a text allows us to reject some interpretations as misreadings.  Thus, Iser's philosophy supports the interactive approach.

To prevent any misreading of a text, you have to actively make meaning of the text.  In other words, the process of reading is what gives the text meaning.  The process includes (1) closely reading the text, (2) considering your responses as you read each part and after you have finished the whole, and (3) asking and answering the following questions.  What are my responses?  What literary techniques trigger these responses?  How do my experiences and expectations affect my reading?  Do my responses change after I have read the text again?  Regardless of your responses, you must balance your subjectivity with objectivity--that is, your interpretation must be valid.

A valid interpretation must make a claim--an assertion of truth open to question.  A valid interpretation must have grounds--reasons for and evidences of the claim.  A valid interpretation must have backing--justifications for the claim (specific references to the text and explications of those references).  To generate the aforementioned--that is, a claim, grounds and backing--you need to engage in the process of criticism.  First, freely write about the poem, focusing on the poem as a whole and on particular lines.  Second, closely read the poem, answering the questions in "Poetry Worksheet."  Third, organize your information.  Fourth, create a working thesis and write a draft.

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     ¹Steven Lynn, Literature: Reading and Writing with Critical Strategies (New York: Pearson Longman, 2004) 45.

     ²Ibidem, 45-46.

     ³Ibidem, 46.

Poetry Worksheet

I often have used the following worksheet as an in-class, collective and/or individual activity.  Students not only learn how to read poetry closely, they also generate information for discussions and essays.

1.   What is the poem's title, and what is the significance of the title? 

2.   Is the poet male or female?  Is the speaker male or female?  To
      whom is the speaker speaking--race, gender, age, et cetera of
      audience?  What is the relationship between the speaker and
      listener--that is, the speaker's tone or attitude toward his/her
      listener?

3.   What is your initial reaction to the poem? 

4.   Read the poem again, and using a dictionary, write the
      definitions of any words you do not know.

5.   Identify the tropes, interpreting them. 

6.   Focusing on its theme (universal concept), try to paraphrase the
      poem.

7.   Which words and phrases provide objective and/or sensory
      details? 

8.   Are there any repetitions of sounds, and are those sounds soft
      and/or harsh?  Why are they such?

9.   Are there any instances of rhyme and if so, of what type?  If
      there is end rhyme, what is the rhyme scheme?  What is the
      significance of each instance of rhyme? 

10. Describe any images.

11. What is the rhythm--slow and/or fast--of the poem?  Scan the
      poem, determining the prevailing meter. 

12. What is the poem's form? 

13. The mood of a poem is the emotional tone that pervades a
      section or the whole of it.  What is/are the mood/moods of the
      poem: happy, ambivalent, sad? 

14. After consideration of all the aforementioned elements, what is
      your reaction to the poem? 

15. Do the elements create a coherent whole--that is, a work with a
      determinate (single, identifiable) meaning (New Criticism)--or
      do the elements create ambiguity--that is, a work with
      indeterminate meanings (deconstructive criticism)?  What are
      two of those meanings?

How to Read Poetry Closely

The following process may help you comprehend poems more easily.

1.   Realize you will need to read the poem more than once. 

2.   Do not try to interpret the poem during the initial reading.  Enjoy
      the experience, listening to the language.

3.   Be attentive to the title. 

4.   Try to read the poem aloud.  Regardless, read the poem slowly,
      carefully.

5.   Freely write about the poem--focusing, first, on the poem as a
      whole and, second, on particular lines. 

6.   Answer the following questions.

• Do you like or dislike the poem and why?
• Is the poem interesting or uninteresting, and which lines evoke your response?
• Is the poem comprehensible or incomprehensible, and which lines do you think are the latter? 

7.   Read the poem again, being attentive to the rhythm and
      punctuation.  Do not stop at the end of a line if it does not have
      punctuation. 

8.   Look for subjects and verbs, and try to paraphrase the poem.

9.   Determine the theme (universal concept) of the poem. 

10. Determine the speaker, for rarely is it the poet. 

      Remember to use the term speaker, not poet, when discussing a
      poem.  The voice you hear in a poem is not necessarily the
      poet's.  However, when discussing general poetic techniques or a
      poem's structure use poet. 

11. Determine the setting (general locale, historical time, and social
      circumstances). 

12. Examine each word, phrase, clause, line and stanza of the poem
      to determine how they work or do not work together.

13. Focus on the elements of the poem that interest you, but ensure
      you address the following: (1) poetic techniques, (2) structure,
      (3) meaning.

14. Do not try to determine the correct reading.  You want to
      produce an interpretation that you feel is accurate because you
      support it with details from the poem. 

      In other words, you will need to quote words, phrases, clauses,
      lines, stanzas and to explicate them.  Let us suppose I want to
      quote the following.
           I went
           to hell 

           and back
           to Mel.
      How would I format my quotation?  First, I would need to
      introduce it: The speaker states in the first and second stanzas
      that "I went / to hell // and back" (1-3).  What do the slashes
      signify?  / is a linear break; // is a stanzaic break.  The numerals
      following the quotation correspond to the lines of the poem--in
      this case, the first through third lines.  Second, I would need to
      explain fully the quotation: The speaker is completely unhappy
      with his life.  He considers his job hellish, and his wife, Mel, is
      the Devil incarnate.

Past Comments on Poems

This post focuses on imagery, its role in poetry and ways to create it.

One goal of a poet is to make abstract, universal concepts--love, hate, birth, death--concrete.  In other words, you want to individualize abstract concepts; you need to personalize your experiences.  Everyone is familiar with such concepts, but they are not familiar with your observation of or participation in the events relative to the concepts.  To make an emotion or event sensible, you must create images.  The following poem ("The Red Wheelbarrow" 1923) by William Carlos Williams underscores the importance of imagery in poetry.
     so much depends
     upon 

     a red wheel
     barrow 

     glazed with rain
     water 

     beside the white
     chickens.*

What depends on a wet wheelbarrow near some chickens?  Literally the poem relies on it; figuratively poetry relies on imagery.  Williams describes an ordinary object and makes a statement about the nature of poetry.  It is significant that the listener/reader realizes an otherwise useful object as art, which is a response to Immanuel Kant's aesthetic.  The diction and syntax are similar to natural speech, and the short lines offer less information than traditional verse.  However, less is more in this case, for the poem gains momentum through enjambment, and such enjambment intensifies the importance of each noun at the ends of the second, third and fourth stanzas.  The poem depends on the fragmentary images that the speaker connects in an elliptical way. 

Another way to make an emotion or event sensible is to compare it to things that are inherently similar to each other.  Describe the things, using different avenues of sensation.  You do not want to compare the emotion or event to disparate things--things made of fundamentally different and often incongruous elements, things markedly distinct in quality or character.  Rather, you want to extend the initial comparison to similar things.  For example, if I were to describe my love for my girlfriend via comparison to a blouse (attraction based on appearance), I would extend the initial comparison to a sail (longing) then to sheets (sexual attraction).  Fabric is the common thread, the fundamental vehicle of comparison.  Of course, I may irritate my girlfriend like a wool sweater chafes skin and find myself alone and naked beneath a streetlight.
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     *Charles Tomlinson, ed., Selected Poems, by William Carlos Williams (New York: New Directions, 1985) 56.

Poetry: Diction, Imagery, Rhythm and Form

Some people consider poetry as prose in a concentrative form, so diction (word choice) is of paramount importance.  Poets choose words to create or extend figures of speech, for their sounds, to create or extend images, to create or maintain rhythm, and for formal reasons.

Figurative language is a conspicuous departure from what users of a language apprehend as the standard meaning of words or the standard order of words in order to achieve some special meaning or effect.  Although they are primarily poetic, figures are integral to the functioning of language and indispensable to all modes of discourse.  Figurative language has been divided into two classes: tropes (the use of phrases in ways that effect changes in what we understand to be their standard meaning) and schemes (the departure from standard usage is in the order or syntactical pattern of the words).  The following are classified as tropes: aporia, conceit, epic simile, hyperbole, irony, kenning, litotes, metaphor, metonomy, paradox, periphrasis, personification, pun, simile, synecdoche, and understatement.  A common scheme is a rhetorical question.  (For more information on figurative language, please peruse the post "Common Poetic Techniques and Terms.")

Most poetry depends on sound to convey emotions and images.  Poets often choose words for their sonic textures.  A poet knows or discovers what sounds his words will make and what effect those sounds will have on a reader.  Alliteration is the repetition of the sound of an initial consonant or consonantal cluster in stressed syllables close enough to each other to affect the ear.  Consonance is the repetition of a sequence of two or more consonants but with a change in the interventional vowels.  Assonance is the repetition of identical or similar vowels--especially in stressed syllables--in sequential words.  Rhyme is the repetition of the last stressed vowel and of the speech sounds following that vowel in at least two words.  End rhymes occur at the end of the lines; internal rhymes occur when at least one word in a line rhymes with another word in that line or in a succedent line.  An eye rhyme is two or more words that to the eye seem to rhyme, in that their spelling is nearly identical--both begin differently but end alike--but to the ear (that is, in pronunciation) do not rhyme.  Also known as partial or imperfect rhyme, slant rhyme occurs when the vowels of words at the end of lines are approximate or different and occasionally the consonants are similar rather than identical.  (For more information on the aforementioned techniques, please peruse the post "Common Poetic Techniques and Terms.")

Both the denotations and the connotations of imagery are akin to the word imitate and, hence, refer to a likeness, reproduction, reflection, copy, resemblance or similitude.  Although most poetry contains imagery (word pictures), the majority of poets do not use one image to communicate an idea; rather, they combine images in their poems.  Imagery signifies all the objects and qualities of sense perception in a literary work--whether by description, allusion, or figurative language.  Imagery includes visual (sight), auditory (sound), tactile (touch), thermal (heat and cold), olfactory (smell), gustatory (taste), and kinesthetic (movement) qualities.  Imagery makes a literary work concrete, as opposed to abstract.  [For more information on imagery, please peruse the posts "Details" and "Poetry (a Revisitation): Imagery."]

Rhythm is a recognizable though variable pattern in the beat of the stresses or accents in a stream of speech-sounds.  The prevalent metrical pattern of a poem--for example, iambic pentameter--establishes itself as a norm that controls the reader's expectations, even though the number of lines that deviate from the norm may exceed the number that fit the norm exactly.  Furthermore, rhythm is distinct from intonation--the overall rise and fall in the pitch and loudness of the voice--that a poet uses to reveal the meaning of a poem and to produce a rhetorical effect.  [For more information on rhythm, please peruse the post "Poetry (a Revisitation): Rhythm."]

Form designates patterns of meter, lines and rhyme, and it designates the order and organization of a work.  The Chicago School of criticism makes a distinction between form and structure.  The form of a poem is the particular working of emotional power that the composition is designed to evoke, which functions as its shaping principle.  That formal principle controls and synthesizes the structure of a work--that is, the order, emphasis and rendering of all its component subject matter and parts--into an effective whole of a determinate kind.  Even if you choose not to use conventional structures, you will find that experimenting with and learning about form will ultimately increase your sensitivity to language--whether you write poetry, short stories, or plays.  [For more information on form, please peruse the post "Poetry (a Revisitation): Form."]

Making careful choices about diction and having an understanding of connotations (associative meanings) are crucial.  You must understand what language can and cannot do for you.  Effectively use words, words that connect you and your audience to your poem.  As a poet you must deliberate over your selection of words.  Always have a dictionary and a thesaurus nearby, for you will want to use words that are not in your vocabulary.  Attention to diction will help you take control of your writing--whether you are creating verse, narration or dialogue.  (Refer to the post "Creating a Poem.")