Literary Analysis Methods

Literary Analysis Methods

The twentieth century is distinguished by the flourishing of numerous literary analysis methods, which focus on different aspects of literary work, such as content, form, author and reader. To my mind the latter plays the key role in perceiving and understanding the major concepts of the literary creations. With the importance placed on the reader, the reader-response criticism promotes the interaction between the reader and the text. This interaction can be viewed from two angles: how the individual reader influences the text, and how the text affects the reader.

In the first case any work of literature can acquire different meanings depending on the reader's intelligence, age, gender, and socioeconomic status, cultural and religious factors that in the aggregate influence the overall perception process. This part of reader-response criticism was shaped by Stanley Fish. He suggests that the readers apply their systems of values to create the meaning of the text rather than discover it. He emphasizes the "I" of the reader, which always adds a peculiar emotional coloring to the text. When interpreting the text, the readers give preferences to some aspects over the others, making them more salient and more important. The readers thus form an interpretative community, which creates a wide range of interpretations.

In the second case the text influences the reader, guiding and controlling him/her in the reading process. Wolfgang Iser suggests that the text determines the reader's responses to some extent. The reader on his part fills in the gaps in the text using all his/her creativity. Iser distinguishes between two types of readers: "the implied reader" who is created by the text itself, in which "response-inviting structures" are offered, and the "actual reader", who brings his own experiences to the text.

The reader-response criticism aims to prove that reading similarly to writing is a creative process. Instead of stating that one interpretation is correct and the other is not, the reader-response criticism permits numerous insights, although with certain limitations. For instance, we cannot change the way in which plot unfolds, or the setting of the story, or the list of characters. Despite the directions or angles of interpretations, one thing is clear. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said "It is the good reader that makes the good book".