Interpretive Strategies/Strategic Interpretations: On Anglo-American Reader Response Criticism

Abstract

When the call for self-justification goes out, reader-response criticism often presents itself as a corrective to formalist or intrinsic criticism. This explanation, though undoubtedly true, does not seem altogether adequate. On the one hand, formalist and new criticism are already so discredited in theoretical circles that there seems little need for another round of abuse. On the other hand, much readerresponse criticism turns out to be a notational variant of that very formalism so roundly rejected. An antiformalist theoretical stance invoked to uphold a neoor covertly formalist practice-a contradiction not altogether unfamiliar these days, and one which suggests that in addition to the dead horses being flogged, there must be some live ones running around escaping notice. Gazes must turn outwards, beyond the corral. It's true that interest in reader response was sparked by a problem in formalist theory, namely the fact that readers commonly disagree as to the aesthetic structures and properties of texts, and that this disagreement doesn't feel at all inappropriate even though it puts into question the objectivity in which formalism seeks to validate itself. Ironically, reader-response criticism seeks its validity in the fact that though disagreement is common, consensus happens too-lots of it, which undermines the affective fallacists' arguments condemning the (supposed) randomness of the purely personal. It's the ex-