Friday, August 30, 2019
A Comparative Study of Norman Holland and David Bleich Essay
Reader Response criticism is a general term that refers to different approaches of modern criticism and literary theory that focuses on the responses of readers and their reactions to the literary text. It also, in M.H Abramsââ¬â¢ words, ââ¬Å"does not designate any one critical theory, but a focus on the process of reading a literary text that is shared by many of the critical modesâ⬠(268). Reader Response criticism is described as a group of approaches to understanding literature that explicitly emphasize the readerââ¬â¢s role in creating the meaning an experience of a literary work. It refers to a group of critics who study, not a literary work, but readers or audiences responding to that literary work. It has no single starting point. They seriously challenge the dominancy of the text-oriented theories such as New Criticism and Formalism. Reader Response theory holds that the reader is a necessary third part in the author-text-reader relationship that constitutes the literary work. The relationship between readers and text is highly evaluated. The text does not exist without a reader; they are complementary to each other. A text sitting on a shelf does nothing. It does not come alive until the reader conceives it. Reader Response criticism encompasses various approaches or types. Of theses types is the ââ¬ËSubjectivistââ¬â¢ Reader Response criticism, which embraces critics such as David Bleich, Norman Holland, who are my focus in this paper, and Robert Crossman. Those critics view the readerââ¬â¢s response not as one guided by text but as one motivated by a deep-seated, personal psychological needs. They also are called ââ¬ËIndividualistsââ¬â¢. As they think that the readerââ¬â¢s response is guided by his psychological needs, therefore some of them, like Norman Holland, have a psychoanalytic view of that response. In the psychoanalytic view the reader responses to the literary work in a highly personal way. The real meaning of the text is the meaning created by the individualââ¬â¢s psyche. Lawrence Shaffer defines Psychoanalytic Criticism as ââ¬Å"an approach to literary criticism, influenced by Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, which views a literary work as an expression of the unconscious- of the individual psyche of its author or of the collective unconscious of a society or of the whole human raceâ⬠(44). Reader Response critics have applied the psychoanalytical view to their analysis of the experience of reading a work. Namely; they focus on the psyche of the reader. Prominent among those who applied the psychoanalytical view is the American critic Norman Holland. Born in Manhattan in1927, Holland is an American literary critic and theorist who has focused on human responses to literature, film, and other arts. He is known for his work in Psychoanalytic criticism and Reader Response criticism. Holland began his Psychoanalytic writings with Psychoanalysis and Shakespeare (1966). In which he made a survey of what psychoanalytic writers has said about Shakespeare. He urged psychoanalytic critics to study real people, the audience and readers of literature, rather than imaginary characters. His contribution to Reader Response criticism was great. He has written aboutâ⬠the way self (reader) interacts with world (text) in four books: The Dynamics of Literary Response (1968), Poems in Persons (1973), 5 Readers Reading (1979), and Laughing: A Psychology of Humor (1982)â⬠(Berg 266). According to Holland there are three explanation-models in Reader Response Theory. First, ââ¬Ëtext-activeââ¬â¢ model, in which ââ¬Å"the text defines the responseâ⬠. The second model he calls ââ¬Å"reader-activeâ⬠, in which readers create meanings, and undergo the reading experience by exploring the text and all its items. ââ¬Å"Word forms, word meanings, syntax, grammar, on up to complex individual ideas about character, plot, genre, themes, or valuesâ⬠(Holland). Thus the reader explores and interprets the text. Most who pioneered this view like Holland are Americans such as David Bleich, Stanley Fish, and Louise Rosenblatt. The third model is a compromise, and Holland calls it ââ¬Ëbi-activeââ¬â¢, in which the text causes part of the response and the reader the rest. Holland thinks that a ââ¬Ëreader-activeââ¬â¢ model is right. He believes that it explains likeness and difference in reading. ââ¬Å"Similarities come from similar hypotheses formed by gender, class, education, race, age, or ââ¬Ëinterpretive community'â⬠(Holland). While the difference come from differing hypotheses that result from individual beliefs, opinions and values, i.e. oneââ¬â¢s ââ¬Ëidentityââ¬â¢. Holland considers a ââ¬Ëtest-activeââ¬â¢ model is wrong, and therefore a ââ¬Ëbi-activeââ¬â¢ model is also wrong as it is half wrong and consequently all wrong. Holland suggests that ââ¬Å"when we interpret a text, we unconsciously â⬠react to our identity themes. To defend ourselves against our â⬠fears and wishes, we transform the work in order to relieve psychic pressuresâ⬠(Shaffer 48). Literature allows us to recreate our identities and to know ourselves as Holland deduced after the ââ¬ËDelphi seminarââ¬â¢, in which he worked at the State University of New York at Buffalo with other critics such as Robert Rogers, David Willbern and others. The ââ¬Ë Delphi seminarââ¬â¢ was designed to get students know themselves. The readerââ¬â¢s re-creation of his identity could happen when he transact with the text in four ways: ââ¬Å"defense, expectation, fantasy, and transformation, which Holland reduces to the acronym ââ¬ËDEFTââ¬â¢ â⬠(Newton, Interpreting Text 144). Defenses are ways of copying with inner and outer reality, particularly conflicts between different psychic agencies and reality. Holland thinks that we defend in many ways; we repress our fears and our painful thoughts or feelings, we deny sensory evidence or we isolate one emotion or idea from another. Expectations are our fears and wishes.Fantacies is what the individual puts out from himself into the outside world. In the ââ¬ËDelphi seminarââ¬â¢ Holland and the rest of critics ââ¬Å"help[ed] students discover how they each bring a personal style (identity) to reading, writing, learning, and teachingâ⬠(Newton, Twentieth-Century 208). The seminar discussed the texts and also their associations, but focused on the associations. Students mastered the subject matter, and also saw how people re-create or develop a personal ââ¬Ëidentityââ¬â¢. Each student had great insight to himself, and his characteristic ways with text and people. Holland thinks that â⬠just as the existence of a child constitutes the existence of a mother and the existence of a mother constitutes the existence of a child, so, in identity theory, all selves and objects constitute one anotherâ⬠(Newton, Twentieth-Century 208). So, I think the existence of a text constitutes the existence of a reader and vice versa, and the understanding of the text constitutes an understanding of self as well. In The Dynamics of Literary Response (1968), Holland was interested in the fact that texts embody fantasies. Later on, his thinking about texts reversed and he inferred that it is the reader who makes fantasies which [s]he transforms or projects onto the literary text. ââ¬Å"People internalize differently because they internalize â⬠¦ according to a core identity themeâ⬠(Berg 267). In Poems in Persons (1973), Holland explains that readers create the text, and he also questions the objectivity of the text. In this book Holland suggests that a poem ââ¬Å"is nothing but specks of carbon black on dried wood pulpâ⬠, and suggests that these specks have nothing to do with people, yet ââ¬Å"people who do thing to these specksâ⬠(Berg 267). When we ââ¬Å"introject literary work we create in ourselves a psychological transformationâ⬠, where we feel as if it were within the text or the work yet it is not. This takes us to Hollandââ¬â¢s ââ¬Ëtransactionalââ¬â¢ model in which the reader initiates and creates the response. Holland saw that reading is a ââ¬Ëtransactionalââ¬â¢ process in which the reader and the text mesh together. And it is a ââ¬Å"personal transaction of the reader with the text in which there is no fundamental division between the textââ¬â¢s role and the readerââ¬â¢s roleâ⬠(Newton, Interpreting Text 142), so the roles of the text dovetails with that of the reader. Holland has hired a group of students for an experiment. They read short stories and discussed them with him in interviews in which he asked questions and elicited associations. Their responses showed a more variety than he could explain. ââ¬Å"Different readers might interpret a poem or a story differently at the level of meaning, morals, or aesthetic value. The text itself, however, was a fixed entity that elicited fairly fixed responsesâ⬠(Holland). He regards the text as an objective entity and has no role in the process of interpretation. But in his next book 5 Readers Reading (1979) he gives more evidence of the subjective creation of the reader. He tried his model on actual readers. Five readers read ââ¬ËA Rose for Emilyââ¬â¢ by Faulkner, and in the process of reading they create very different stories, ââ¬Å"stories which inevitably reflect the identity themes of their creatorsâ⬠(Berg 267). When he listened to their understandings of a given character or event or phrase, he found them invariably different. Their emotional responses were diverse. So, the idea that there is a fixed or appropriate response was an illusion. Holland deduces that fantasies, structures, and forms do not exist in a literary work as he previously conceived, but they exist in the individual readerââ¬â¢s re-creation of the text. Holland thinks that ââ¬Å"each person reads differently, and this difference stems from personalityâ⬠(Newton, Twentieth-Century 204). Holland found that he could understand the readerââ¬â¢s differing responses by reading their identities. And he could explain their different reactions to the poem or short story by looking to their identity themes, as their patters of defences, expectations, fantasies, and transformations will help. The transformational model of his Dynamics was correct, but it was the reader who does the transformation and not the text. The text was only a raw material. So Holland arrives at the deduction that people who have fantasies after his previous assumption that text embody fantasies. Hollandââ¬â¢s thinking about texts reversed after David Bleichââ¬â¢s proddi ng who insisted that texts do not have fantasies, people do. To understand a literary work, Holland claims that you should perceive it through the lens of some human perception, either your own experience, or someone else, or even a criticââ¬â¢s analysis of the work. These perceptions vary from individual to individual, from community to community, and from culture to culture. He thinks that one cannot perceive the raw, naked text, as he can only perceive it through some one elseââ¬â¢s process of perception. Thus Holland claims that ââ¬Å"if readersââ¬â¢ free responses to texts are collected they [will] have virtually nothing in commonâ⬠(Newton, Interpreting Text 143). According to Holland the relation between the ââ¬Ësubjectiveââ¬â¢ and ââ¬Ëobjectiveââ¬â¢ is undifferentiated and can not be separated. For there is a ââ¬Ëtransactionalââ¬â¢ process of interpretation where the roles of the reader and the text are intertwined, and the line dividing them blurs and dissolves. He thinks that readers should accept interpretation as a ââ¬Ëtransactionââ¬â¢ between the readerââ¬â¢s unique ââ¬Ëidentityââ¬â¢ and the text. Holland, however, does not want to take the side of the objective or that of the subjective, yet he is looking for a vanishing point between them, and wants to make both text and reader meet at an intersection of interpretation. David Bleich (1936-) is a Jewish critic, a son of a rabbi, a professor of Talmud, and a Subjectivist Reader Response critic. In Subjective Reader Response, the text is subordinated to the individual reader. The subject becomes the individual reader as he reacts to the text and reveals himself in the act of reading. For example, when a reader is addressed with a story of a father who ignores his child, then the intensity of that readerââ¬â¢s reaction may lay it his/her conflicted relation with his own father. Subjective criticism has been attacked as being too relativistic. Defenders of this approach point out that literature must work on a personal, emotional level to move us powerfully. David Bleich takes an approach differs from Hollandââ¬â¢s. H is primary concern in his book Readings and Feelings is pedagogy rather than psychology. He thinks that ââ¬Å"reading is a wholly subjective processâ⬠(Rabinowitz 86), and that the different or competing interpretation can be negotiated and settled. He examines the ways in which meanings or interpretations are constructed in a class room community, ââ¬Å"with particular emphasis on the ways in which a group can negotiate among competing interpretationsâ⬠(86). In Readings and Feelings, Bleich presentsâ⬠a detailed account of his teaching techniques during a typical semesterâ⬠(Berg 269). Thatââ¬â¢s why he is concerned with pedagogy and not psychology. He introduces himself to his class and discusses the way he wants his students to look at literature. The first preliminary sessions were designed to help students be acquainted with their subjective feelings, and how to depict them. Even the ââ¬Å"idiosyncratic personal responsesâ⬠of the students are accepted and discussed sympathetically. With the students Bleich plunges into different literary genres including poetry, short story, and novel. Yet before discussing these genres, ââ¬Å"Bleich wants his students to be as personal as possible when they discuss poetry. He wants their affective responses, their free associations, any anecdotal material that occurs to themâ⬠(Berg 269). Bleich focuses on questions such as what is ââ¬Å"the most important word, the most important passage, or the most important aspect of a storyâ⬠(269). Thus, he believes that his students move from the personal to the interpersonal and then to the social. The cause of these movements is not ââ¬Å"the change in genreâ⬠¦; but the tenor of the questions Bleich asksâ⬠(269) is what guides the movement. Shaffer says that ââ¬Å"In Subjective Criticism (1978), Bleich assumes that ââ¬Ëeach personââ¬â¢s most urgent motivations are to understand himselfââ¬â¢ and that all ââ¬Ëobjectiveââ¬â¢ interpretations are derived ultimately from subjective responsesâ⬠(Shaffer 48). Like Norman Holland, Bleich focuses on the subconscious responses of the readers to the text, including his ââ¬Å"emotional responses, our infantile, adolescent, or simply ââ¬Ëgutââ¬â¢ responsesâ⬠(Berg 268). According to Bleich the interpretation of texts or the personal responses to texts are in a way or another motivated. Namely; we are motivated by certain things to make a certain interpretation or response to a literary work in particular or a work of art in general. Our interpretations are a motivated activities, and ââ¬Å"any act of interpretation, or meaning-conferring activity is motivated, andâ⬠¦it is important for us to understand the motives behind our interpretationsâ⬠(270). Bleich suggests that only way to figure out and determine these motivations behind our interpretations of texts is to ââ¬Å"took our subjective responses to texts â⬠¦where each readerââ¬â¢s response receives the same respectâ⬠(270). A sheer desire to self-understanding and self-knowledge is what motivates us as readers. We interpret in order to gain ââ¬Å"some kind of knowledge which will resolve some difficultyâ⬠, or we do it to ââ¬Å"explain something that was puzzling usâ⬠(270). Bleich goes further and says that ââ¬Å"if a certain set or school of interpretation prevails; it is not because it is closer to an objective truth about artâ⬠(Newton, Twentieth-Century 234). If a community of students agreed upon certain interpretation to a given text, then ââ¬Å"the standard truthâ⬠¦can only devolve upon the community of studentsâ⬠(234). So, when students come up with a consensus reading of a certain text, and agree unanimously upon its interpretation, then their subjective feeling and values are the same. Thus the literary text ââ¬Å"must come under the control of subjectivity; either an individualââ¬â¢s subjectivity or the collective subjectivity of a groupâ⬠(233). The group comes up with a consensus after discussing their personal responses with each other and negotiates ideas and individual responses. This idea of negotiation that Bleich introduces helps the group weighs and discusses each oneââ¬â¢s own responses ââ¬Å"in order to come to a group decisionâ⬠(Berg 271). Then Bleich says thatâ⬠critics and their audiences assume interpretive knowledge to beâ⬠¦as objective as formulaic knowledgeâ⬠(Newton 232). The assumption of the objectivity of a text is almost ââ¬Å"a game played by critics (232). Critics know the fallacy of the objectivity of a text, and believe in critical pluralism, namely; allowing multiple interpretations of the same work. Bleich does not ignore or deny the objectivity of the text or a work of literature. But text is an object that is different from other objects as it is a ââ¬Ësymbolicââ¬â¢ object. A text is not just a group o words written in ink on a sheet of paper. It, unlike other objects, has no function in its material existence. For example, an apple is an object that its existence does not depend on whether someone eats it or sees it, however, a textââ¬â¢s or a bookââ¬â¢s existence ââ¬Å"does depend on whether someone writes it and reads itâ⬠(Newton 233). The work of literature is a response to the authorââ¬â¢s life experience, and the interpretation of the reader the response to his reading experience. The readerââ¬â¢s subjective interpretation creates an understanding to the text. Through this transaction between the reader and the text, I think we can come across with an understanding of literature and of people as well. This artistic transaction helps to blur and dissolve the dividing line between the subjective and objective. It is idle as Bleich found ââ¬Å"to imagine that we can avoid the entanglements of subjective reactions and motivesâ⬠(Newton, Twentieth-Century 235). As our motive in our subjective interpretations is our desire to self-knowledge and self-understanding, then the study of ourselves and the study of the literary work are ultimately a single enterprise. Though Holland and Bleich are Individualist Reader Response critics, they have different views in particular issues. Norman Holland thinks that in order to understand a studentââ¬â¢s or a readerââ¬â¢s interpretation of a text he should examine his psyche and uncover his ââ¬Ëidentity themeââ¬â¢. Bleich takes a different position. He is concerned with pedagogy rather that psychology, therefore he examines the ways in which meanings are constructed, and how a group of readers could negotiate interpretations. Holland suggests that the readerââ¬â¢s role is intermingling with that of the text. The reader re-creates the text influenced by his/her subjective responses and introjects his/her fantasies on the literary work. Through this transaction with the text we re-create our identities, and our identity themes provide individual differences in interpretations, and the result is a wide array of interpretations that allow us to explore many responses. Bleich denies Hollandââ¬â¢s ââ¬Ëidentity themeââ¬â¢. He thinks that interpretations are not an outcome of our differing identity themes, but they are a result of our motives, feelings, and preoccupations. Hollandââ¬â¢s Delphi seminar helped students or readers know their selves and discover that each one of them can bring a personal style (identity) to reading. So, the issue of self-discovery or self-knowledge is agreed upon by Holland and Bleich as well, however their ways of achieving it differ. Holland does not side with either the subjective or the objective split, yet he is looking for a vanishing point between them. In his Dynamics he used to consider the text as an objective reality, or a raw material. Yet the role of the reader combines that of the text in a transactional process of reading and interpretation. Thus there is no fundamental division between the roles of both the reader and the text, they dovetail with each other. For Bleich, the text is a ââ¬Ësymbolic objectââ¬â¢ that has no function in its material existence. The existence of text depends on whether someone writes it or reads it. So, the existence of the text and the existence of the reader is interdependent. Holland holds the same view when he says that the existence of a mother constitutes the existence of a child and vice versa, also the existence of selves constitutes the existence of objects. Thereby, the dividing line between the objective and subjective blurs and dissolves. This constitutes that we cannot ignore the entanglements of subjective reactions and motives to the objective text or to be accurate, the text which is a ââ¬Ësymbolicââ¬â¢ object. Both critics agree on the idea of the transactional process of reading, whether by Hollandââ¬â¢s identity themes which help reader interpret the text and understand himself, or by Bleichââ¬â¢s desire to self-knowledge that motivates reader to interpret the text and understand it. Both apply a transaction that leads to an understanding and interpretation of a text along with the readerââ¬â¢s own self. This aim of gaining knowledge and this study of ourselves and of art are ultimately a single enterprise. I think that Holland does not agree that there could be a consensus interpretation which is agreed upon by a group of readers. He thinks that each reader has his own personality or identity theme, and thereby interpretations will be multiple and diverse. While Bleichââ¬â¢s idea of ââ¬Ënegotiationââ¬â¢ among readers can lead to a unanimous decision about the meaning of the literary work. The negotiation among readers enable them to express their personal feelings freely and depict their responses without the fear of being rejected. For instance, in David Bleichââ¬â¢s class, there is a democracy. Each readerââ¬â¢s response receives the same respect, and there is no underestimation of their idiosyncrasies. This helped them develop from the personal to the interpersonal and then to the social. While in Hollandââ¬â¢s view, there can be no unanimous interpretation of a given work of art. For each reader is influenced by his/her identity theme. Also, ââ¬Å"Hollandââ¬â¢s subjects report their responses in terms of ââ¬Ëthe clichà ¯Ã ¿Ã ½s of the various subcultures and cultural discourses work to constitute the consciousness of American college studentsââ¬â¢Ã¢â¬ ¦. [Holland concludes that not] the individuality of his students butâ⬠¦the way their ââ¬Ëindividualityââ¬â¢ is in fact aââ¬â¢ productââ¬â¢ of their cultural situationâ⬠(Rabinowitz 86). In conclusion, ââ¬Å"Holland and Bleich did not [in a way or another] negotiate a consensus; rather, by some irritated leap, Holland becomes convinced of what Bleich had to tell himâ⬠(Berg 271). Works Cited Abrams, M.H. ââ¬Å"Reader-Response Criticism.â⬠Glossary of Literary Terms. 6th Ed. New York: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1993. Berg, Temma F. ââ¬Å"Psychologies of Reading.â⬠Tracing Literary Theory. Ed. Joseph Natoli. Urbana and Chicago: Illinois UP, 1987. 248-274. Holland, Norman N. ââ¬Å"Reader-Response already is Cognitive Criticism.â⬠Bridging the Gap. 8 Apr. 1995. Stanford University. 26 Dec. 2007 . ââ¬â, ââ¬Å"The Story of a Psychoanalytic Critic.â⬠An Intellectual. 26 Dec. 2007 . Laga, Barry. ââ¬Å"Reading with an Eye on Reading: An Introduction to Reader-Response.â⬠Reader Response. 1999. 23 Dec. 2007 . Newton, K. M. ââ¬Å"Reader Response Criticism.â⬠Interpreting the Text: A Critical Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Literary Interpretation. Great Britain: Billing and Sons, 1990. 141-153. ââ¬â, ed. ââ¬Å"Norman Holland: Reading and Identity: A Psychoanalytic Revolution.â⬠Twentieth-Century Literary Theory. London: Macmillan, 1989. 204-209. ââ¬â, ââ¬Å"David Bleich: The Subjective Character of The Critical Interpretation.â⬠Twentieth-Century Literary Theory. London: Macmillan, 1989. 231-235. Rabinowitz, Peter J. ââ¬Å"Whirl without End: Audience-Oriented Criticism.â⬠Contemporary Literary Theory. Ed. G. Douglas Atkins and Laura Morrow. USA: Macmillan UP, 1989. 81-85. Shaffer, Lawrence. ââ¬Å"Psychoanalytic Criticism.â⬠Literary Criticism. 1sted. New Delhi: IVY Publishing House, 2001. 44-48.
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