"The Affective Fallacy is a confusion between the poem and its results( what it is and what it does).... It begins by trying to derive the standards of criticism from the psychological effects of a poem and ends in impressionism and relativism. The outcome...is that the poem itself as an object of specifically critical judgement, tend to disappear." This excerpt is from the reader response section of "The Dead." I was so caught up when I read this that I was not able to get much from the rest of the section. Essentially this quote says that what the reader believes the work means is completely irrelevant. I was appalled. I have always been told that literature is like a dance, it takes both the reader and the writer to make a successful work.
However in the following paragraph Fish argues that "literature exists when it is read." I could not agree more. A work is just words on a page, but when the audience reads the words they come to life. I feel that it is almost impossible to read a novel/poem without putting our own experiences into the interpretation. This is how critics are able to develop their own assessments of a work. I find this statement similar to the question if a tree makes a noise when it falls in a forest without anyone around. I am of the mind that if no one is around to hear the noise then it does not matter, so if no one is able to read a work and make an analysis using their own experience then the work is just an object taking up space instead of a piece of art.
I can’t begin to think that students’ interpretations of a text doesn’t matter. All throughout school our teachers have taught us to interpret a text – and if two interpretations are different, that’s okay. It seems so strange that such an important concept we learned in school is simply thrown out the window – like it never existed. Once the words of a text come to life, as you say, the reader can understand it better. I think it makes more sense reading it aloud to yourself or in a group or seeing a TV or film adaptation. I never really thought about your point on critics. It makes sense that they write reviews on works that can incorporate their personal experiences too.
ReplyDeleteThe reader has as much say in a work as the author. Saying the reader's interpretation has no value is, well, wrong. The author can pull you along and sway you into a certain direction, but each individual reader is going to look at a character a slightly different way or look at a them a slightly different way. The reader is as much a part of literature as the author and their different interpretation is party what makes reading interesting. We all bring life to what we read.
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