2. Reader-Response Criticism

Reader-response criticism is not a conceptually unified critical position. Its theory is instead associated with the work of critics who use the reading process and response to centralize the process of interpretation. The interpretive process delineates the author’s attitude towards the reader, categorizes types of readers, and how different readers reach the meaning and the relation of reading conventions to the texts under discussion. The status of a text is discussed in relation to its objectivity. It is argued that a text cannot be objective. Writing and reading are the same activity, and literary response is a result of influence; therefore, the treatment of a text as an objective enterprise does not justify the aim of literary criticism. The meaning of the text is incomplete without the reader’s revaluation. The prominent question is how far a text determines its own meaning and how far is the meaning determined by the reader.