Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Reader-Response
Many of my high school literature teachers often began our textual discussions by telling the class what a text was about and by letting us know that her or his interpretations would be the answers to our exam questions. Rarely was I asked what I got from the text or my reaction to it. I believe that many of those teachers were still stuck in the "Formalist" mindset referred to in the Reader-Response Critism. As Fish suggests in the text I believe that "Literature exists when it is read" (126). The reader is extremely important in taking what was once someones thoughts simply written down and turning those written thoughts into literature. I believe that every single person can gain or interpret something entirely unique from a text as ever single person has experienced life differently. I agree with the statement that "... reading is never a passive activity to which the reader contributes nothing. Rather it is inevitably (although not exclusively) a constructive act that takes the raw material of the words on the page and builds something else from them" (Rabinowitz 138). In reading The Dead each reader can gain a different understanding of the text while still realizing overarching themes from the text.
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I also believe that, depending on your experience of life, texts will be interpreted differently. However, can a text only be interpreted the way the author meant it to be or do authors mean for people of different backgrounds to interpret their works accordingly to what the audience has experienced? It reminds me of a book we read in COMP I called "Everything is an Argument." I always hated the standardized tests in high school because I would read the passages, and because of my background, take something different away from what I read. And whenever I got an answer wrong, I vehemently argued, "That's arguable." What is true of a text and what are we just pulling out of thin air? That's what I'd like to know.
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