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
