A. Lousie Rossenblatt
Louise Michelle Rosenblatt
is one of theorist of reader response criticism like Stanley Fish, Wolfgang
Iser, and so on. She was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey on August, 23 1904.
She died in Arlington, Virginia on February, 8 2005. She was an American
university professor. She is best known as a researcher into the teaching of
literature, especially for her influential texts Literature as Exploration (1983) and The Reader, The Text, The Poem: The Transactional Theory of the
Literary Works (1978). She has
theory about reader response criticism. Her theory is called Transactional
Reading Theory. Frankly, Transactional Theory is dvided two. First is for
reading and second is for writing. But here we are going to discuss about
Transactional Reading Theory. She argues that the act of reading literature
involves a transaction between the reader and the text. Virtually, Transactional
Reading Theory is a “mutual shaping” exchange between reader and text. Both are
changed in the reading. It proposes that the relationship between reader and
text is much like that between the river and its banks, each working its
effects upon the other , each contributing to the shape of the poem. In
Transactional Reading theory, every readers bring her or his own attitudes and
ideas to any text which then have an impact on the reader’s interpretation of
that text. Louise Rosenblatt explains that readers approach the work in ways
that can be viewed as efferent and aesthetic.
A.
Efferent Reading Approach
Rosenblatt
states, “the reader’s attention is primarily focused on what will remain as a
residue after the reading and the
information to be acquired, the logical solution to a problem, the actions to
be carried out.” An example would be a deep sea fishing guide to decide where
to go fishing, or a textbook to learn about the economic causes of the Great
Depression. Moreover reading is to “take away” particular bits of information.
Here, the reader is not interested in the rhythms of the language or prose
style but is focused on obtaining a piece of information.
B.
Aesthetic Reading Approach
In
the Aesthetic Reading Approach, Reading is to explore the work and onself. Here
readers are engaged in the experience of reading itself. Louise Rosenblatt
states, “the reader’s attention is centered directly on what he is living
through during his relationship with that particular text.” An example would be
reading Hemingways’s Old Man and The Sea to live through a deep sea fishing
adventure or The Grapes of Wrath to plumb the emotional depths of living
through the Great Depression. One would not read the Old Man and The Sea to learn
how to deep sea fish nor The Grapes of Wrath to examine the economic factors
that caused the Great Depression.
Aesthetic
Reading Approach states that :
1. Reader is absorbed,
2. Drawing past experience when reading,
3. Reader participates in story,
4. Reader is important,
5. Text is blueprint,
6. Reader constructs literary meaning.
Louise
Rosenblatt states, “only a reader in aesthetic transaction with the text can
synthesize the parts into a “whole” or structure which is a work of art. The
readers draw on his own reservoir or past life experience; he has notions of
what to expect of a novel or poem or satire. But he has to use whatever he
brings to the text and build out of his responses to the patterned verbal cues
a unifying principle. The structure of the work of art corresponds ultimately
to what he perceives as the relationship that he has woven among the various
elements or parts of his lived-through experience. Instead of thinking of the
structure of the work of art as something statically inherent in the text, we
need to recognize the dynamic situation in which the reader, in the
give-and-take with the text, senses or organizes a relationship among the
various parts of his lived-through experience.
C.
Conclusion
The
core of Efferent Reading Approach is reading to get information. Whereas the
core of Aesthetic Reading Approach is reading to get pleasure or enjoyment. Efferent
Reading Approach involves what remains after the reading is completed, such as
information and facts, or solutions to a problem. For instance reading history
books, cooking recipes, newspaper articles, and even chemical and algebraic
formulas. Aesthetic Reading Approach tends more toward animation and the
raeder’s involvement in what he is living through during his relationship with
a particular text. So, reading literary works must be aesthetic rather than
efferent.
D.
Refferences:
1.
http://composing.org/digitalmedia/efferent-vs-aesthetic-reading/
3. http://traceyk9.wordpress.com/2010/07/18/reading-12-to-rosenblatt-3-efferent-and-aesthetic-reading/
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