I don't particularly pride myself on eavesdropping, but the other day at the coffee shop down the street from my house, I just couldn't resist; a man can only take so much. I walked in, ordered my cup of joe, sat down with the homework that I was planning to work on, and immediately caught on to a heated debate between a gentleman and gentlewoman sitting by the fireplace. After listening for only a few minutes, I unraveled the core of this debate from the entanglement of comments it had been covered in.
The core of their argument was: is reader response theory a valid literary theory or not, based on the way most people use it.
Immediately this brought me back to a class I took last year with Jack. He and I enrolled in a 20th century British Literature course, and one of our assignments was to pick from five literary theories – Stanly Fish's reader response theory being one of them – analyze a text with our chosen theory, and present it to the class. Needless to say, almost every single student enrolled in that class chose reader response theory; it was considered the 'easy way out.' Because of that, the presentations given by our fellow students turned into, what seemed to me as, journal entries expressing why the presenter saw their mom or dad in some of the characters, or why this made them really like certain characters over others, or sympathize with the antagonist rather than the protagonist. It was bad. Jack took no hesitation in expressing his dislike towards these types of presentations as well as, and though it was only the tip of the iceberg for me, the reader response literary theory.
Now let me clarify. Both the debaters in the coffee shop, as well as Jack and I did not have a problem with the theory because of what it proclaimed, but rather with the way that people misunderstand and misuse the theory. I am going to go out on a limb here and say that it seems to be one of the most widely misused literary theories out there, out least from my experience.
So with that said I want to open the floor to the readers. Jack and I's quarter ended, and that coffee shop closed and the two debaters went home, but that doesn't mean that this discussion has to. I want to hear all of your opinions on reader response theory, its shortcomings, its strengths, if it is and should be considered a valid literary theory. And anything else that you see pertinent to this debate. I look forward to reading your responses.
Until next time,
Nick
The theory is a valid process theory, in that it attempts to explain how we come about making interpretations; however, that does not give license to project meaning onto the page. I know a lot of people in the field like to say "there is no wrong answer," but that's simply not true in some sense. The Return of the Soldier is not about puppies frolicking in the meadows, and even if one's "interpretive community" somehow makes someone inclined to see puppy symbolism and imagery, it does not mean that the projection of said meaning is valid.
ReplyDeleteReader response theory has its perks and it serves its purpose -- people do, however, need to start reading it a bit more closely, and professors need to take some responsibility when students misuse these types of theories.
So, long story short, reader response is a valid theory in that it attempts to provide some sort of explanation; however, students often use it in invalid ways. This is not to say that reader response should be taken out of Lit Theory classes. Just because the user of a tool is a dumbass doesn't mean we ought to take the tool away, or call it invalid for that matter.
I'm done now.
J
I was talking to a fellow peer about a poetry class she was taking at a different institution. She was telling me how the professor wanted them to give their own interpretation. Now this student is not an English major, and so she wrote a paper about what the imagery meant to her.
ReplyDeleteNeedless to say, she received a D on the paper. When she went to her professor and asked him why, he said that there are certain words in a poem that the poet uses to conjure up specific images.
Now I am usually all about expressionism and hearing your voice. But when analyzing a piece of literature, I must make it clear that although there is no literary truth, there is certainly a literary neighborhood in which any academic who is seriously analyzing a piece of literature should be in. Such that one should not see puppies frolicking in the meadows when reading The Return of the Solider to quote Jack.
As a reader this maybe challenging, but as an author it is reassuring. An author has a specific message he/she wants to get across even if that message is there is no deeper meaning. To ignore that not only does a disservice to the piece, but in a practical sense shows a lack of preparation and mucking around in the material.
A child could tell me how they feel about something. But to have a critical discussion about a piece one needs to take the clues given by the author and make sure our inferences and opinions are deeply rooted in and supported by the text.
Bermuda