Introduction to Reader-Response Theory

This video is designed to give students a basic introduction to reader-response theory as a form of literary analysis. (disclaimer: I don't own any of the information on these slides; that's pulled from Lois Tyson's "Critical Theory Today" second edition. I owe a lot to Tyson's book which got me through many difficult situations in graduate school, and I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to study this further)

[@hajeralqaseri8052]

Hi dr. Ryan I’m here to thank you for your help 😭🤲🏻 I did my presentation and it was so perfect because of your advices. ❤️🇸🇦

[@monde1482]

Thank you Sir Ryan for this lecture! It helps a lot! 😄

[@ryanhitch6350]

Happy to help! :) I really struggled with this before getting Tyson's "Critical Theory Today". Happy to share the knowledge!

[@yorrstruely]

It's very helpful thank you so much

[@ryanhitch6350]

I'm pleased to hear this helped! :) If you'd like another follow-up video on something, or additional resources, leave a comment and I'll get on that asap.

[@abhishekgs]

Do a video on New Historicism

[@ranaa.a7628]

how can apply this theory to a short story I have to write it then write a critique about it from reader-response theory ??? thanks on advance

[@ryanhitch6350]

If I understand your question, it sounds like you're reading a story that you have to analyze with reader response theory (if I don't understand, feel free to comment with more detail--I am motivated to help you!). If that's right, then what you're trying to do is analyze how people react to the story. If it's a popular story that many people have written about, the easiest way might be to research the reactions those people have and analyze their responses. If it's not a popular story, then go on your gut for how you think readers would react. Keep in mind: it's not necessarily how "you'd" react. Think of readers here like the average person, not a specific person. For example, if you keep seeing the color red in a story, red is associated with love and passion, so you might say that this "encourages the reader to think about love and romance" and then, if the author is talking about two characters while using those colors, you might say, "the reader thinks about because of the colors, and this might cause the reader to wonder if the characters are in love." Does that help?

[@bettyatieno355]

Hello..can you show me the force behind reader-response theory in modern literature please

[@ryanhitch6350]

Yeah, happy to help! :) You should have an email from me in your inbox. Let me know if you have any questions.

[@halaabdelkawy8041]

thanks for your efforts in this video to explain this theory. Actually, I need your help🥺 I'm a MA student. I was searching a lot among the theories and finally decided to use this theory. But I still don't know how can I choose a literary work (novel or drama) to apply this theory on it? or how should I know whether this literary work was used before or not? or how should I start ?! 😩😵

[@ryanhitch6350]

Reader response focuses on how the reader and text interact with each other. Normally, we look at the text as creating all meaning (we're reading the author's words after all; this makes sense). Reader response says "but how much meaning is the reader responsible for?" and that's a worthy question to ask. For example, if 100% of the meaning is in the text, how can one reader love a book and the other person hate it? That's an oversimplification, but gets at the basic idea of reader response, that somewhere, deep down, we help the text create meaning.

[@ryanhitch6350]

If you feel comfortable, you're welcome to email me at [e-mail]. That's my KZbin-specific email. I'm happy to help you one-on-one. Otherwise, can you tell me a little more about the essay you're trying to write? That'd be my next question if you emailed me.

[@halaabdelkawy8041]

@@ryanhitch6350 Thanks for your reply. I really appreciate that. I emailed you 🥰

[@hajeralqaseri8052]

please how to applied this theory on a movie ? i need help i have presentation in the next week :((

[@ryanhitch6350]

Hi Hajer! Here's a good way to think about reader-response with film. In order to have a film, there has to be a screenplay. The actors read the screenplay to learn about their characters and their lines. The directors read the screenplay to learn the instructions for how the film should look. Those are already both examples of reader-response between the text (screenplay) and readers (people acting or directing). You can perform your own reader-response by (ideally) getting the screenplay and reading it, or if you can't, then you can do reader-response by pretending the film is a screenplay and thinking about it that way in your analysis.

[@ryanhitch6350]

Just remember to keep that distance between you and the film. Reader response is all about separating out "what the film is" vs. "your experience of the film". You may find it helpful to take notes while watching the film and have those two categories as columns. "What the film is" are just notes about what you saw in the film, and "your experience of the film" is how what you saw made you feel and what you think it means.

[@hajeralqaseri8052]

@@ryanhitch6350 I appreciate your help thank you sooo much 😭 i feel confusing because English not my mother language

[@ryanhitch6350]

@@hajeralqaseri8052 This is hard stuff for non-native English speakers! :( I sympathize with your situation. Please ask me any other questions you have as you work on this and I'll do my best to help you. I get notifications about your comments pretty quickly.

[@hajeralqaseri8052]

@@ryanhitch6350 Oh I don’t know how to thank you 🥺 we choose to apply this theory on Cruella movie! What I understood is to show my opinion and response , is it like writing an analysis essay?