Reader-response criticism is a school of literary theory that focuses on the readers experience of a literary work, in contrast to other schools and theories that focus on the author or the content and form of the work. It recognizes the reader as an active agent who imparts "real existence" to the work and completes its meaning through interpretation. The theory argues that literature should be viewed as a performing art in which each reader creates their own, possibly unique, text-related performance.
Reader-response criticism suggests that the role of the reader is essential to the meaning of a text, for only in the reading experience does the literary work come alive. The key idea of Reader Response Criticism is that readers create meaning rather than find it in a text. The meaning of a text is derived from the reader through the reading process.
There are multiple approaches within the theoretical branch of reader-response criticism, yet all are unified in their belief that the meaning of a text is derived from the reader through the reading process. Lois Tyson classified the variations into five recognized reader-response criticism approaches whilst warning that categorizing reader-response theorists explicitly invites difficulty due to their overlapping beliefs and practices.
Reader-response criticism relates to psychology, both experimental psychology for those attempting to find principles of response, and psychoanalytic psychology for those studying individual responses. Since reader-response critics focus on the strategies readers are taught to use, they may address the teaching of reading and literature.
In summary, reader-response criticism is a literary theory that focuses on the readers experience of a literary work and argues that readers create meaning rather than find it in a text. It recognizes the reader as an active agent who imparts "real existence" to the work and completes its meaning through interpretation.
