Reader-Response Criticism | Michael Vander Weele (essay date 1991)
Michael Vander Weele (essay date 1991)
SOURCE: Weele, Michael Vander. “Reader-Response Theories.” In Contemporary Literary Theory: A Christian Appraisal, edited by Clarence Walhout and Leland Ryken, pp. 125-48. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1991.
[In the following essay, Weele presents an analysis of reader-response theories, tracing the beginnings of this critical approach to the earliest interpretations of scripture.]
Literary criticism has always involved three inescapable elements: the author, the work, and the reader. Reader-response criticism regards the third of these elements as the most crucial for criticism, for criticism always begins in the first instance with reading. The current interest in reader-response theory derives not only from this fact, however; it also comes from contemporary skepticism about our knowledge of authors' intentions, from philosophical problems with the formalist view...
[The entire page is 7886 words long]
Navigate
