Reader Response
Criticism
- Is simply a reader's response to the literary text of which they were reading
- The role of the reader cannot be omitted from our understanding of literature
- Different people may read the exact same thing differently
- Other criticisms focus on author or content
5 Headings
Transactional Reader‐Response Theory
- Transactional Reader‐Response Theory
- Affective Stylistics
- Subjective Reader‐Response Theory
- Psychological Reader‐Response Theory
- Social Reader‐Response Theory
Affective Stylistics
Subjective
Reader‐Response Theory
- Analyzes the transaction between text and reader
- The text acts as a stimulus to which we respond in our own personal way
Psychological Reader‐Response Theory
- A literary text is an event that occurs in time, coming into being as it is read
- The reader's responses are the actual text and are what a critic analyzes
- Here is no literary text beyond the meanings created by readers’ interpretations
- Literary meaning based entirely off of readers' responses
- Compares readers' reactions
- It shows that knowledge is created collaboratively
Social
Reader‐Response Theory
- Norman Holland
- Readers’ motives strongly influence how they read
- A focus on what a reader's response says about themselves, not the text.
- Stanley Fish
- No subjective response is purely individual
- Products of the interpretive community to which we belong
Examples in Hamlet
Defining Readers
For those who lost a loved one, whether it be a violent or peaceful death may understand Hamlet and Laerte's want for revenge more than someone who has never experienced loss.
- "Readers"- theorists analyze actual readers' responses (ex. Norman Holland and David Bleich)
- "The reader"- critic analyzes his/her own reading experience of a specific text according to specific reader‐response principles
If the reader was raised in a religious family then most likely would believe suicide is a sin making them incapable of relating/ feeling for Hamlet. While others may have felt a pain and depression similar to Hamlet so they will show more sympathy towards him.
Possible "Readers"
Hamlet, It's your turn ;)
- Claudius Praying
- Ghost of Hamlet
- Talk between Hamlet and his mother
- A parent
- A child with step parents
- A ghost
- A man who poisoned his brother in the ear, married his brother's wife and then plotted to kill his brother's son
"Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind" Hamlet act 3.2
Lizzy: Kindness speaks louder than words. You may give the most expensive gift but it means nothing without the act of love behind it
Hadeel: Inauthenticity devalues gifts
Olivia: An expensive and nice gift means nothing when the giver isn't nice or a good guy
Jihana: When people have ulterior motives no gift is worth it as it is given as more of an incentive than a kind gesture