Reader-Response Criticism In Literature

Reader-Response Criticism – sometimes called reader theory or audience theory – is

quite unlike the other critical methods. In fact it is not a method at all in the sense of

particular technique, a school of thought, or a systematic procedure used to approach all

works of literature. Rather, it’s more of an attitude that can be an effective starting point

for a classroom inquiry into criticism, offering a student – friendly perspective on

exploring literature, a distinct teaching outlook. “Reader-response criticism puts the

individual reader into the driver’s seat” (Abrams). It asserts that the meaning of any

literary work is not what was created by author – or what has been decided on by experts

or teachers or some consensus

To any given reading public has “horizons of expectations” beyond which they cannot see. Hans-Robert Jauss theories of reading, as for the reader’s role in evaluating, enriching, adding, omitting or modifying on the already existent social and psychological assumptions of the literary text. Bestowing on the text newly and constant innovation, this process hel the reader transcend what is traditionally prohibited in the text to reach new epistemological and ethical realms concordant with the reader’s horizons of

Reception theory as proposed by Jauss points at the relationship of text and reader which has two aspects: historical and aesthetics. Firstly, when a reader first encounters a text he compares its aesthetic value with other text. Secondly, the reader will impart his understanding of the text from generation to generation. Jauss focuses the formation of “a literary history based on an aesthetics of reception.” Thus what is required is the transformation of “history of reception of the individual work to the history of literature,” that is emblematic of the historical sequence of the works, capable of clarifying “the coherence of literature,” to the extent that is meaningful for us. Hans-Robert Jauss formulates seven “thesis” to indicate how literary history can be methodically written in a new