Critical Theory Today

Good Morning,

I wanted to begin by pointing out how much I enjoyed reading this aspect of the book especially the part on Psychological reader-response theory. I enjoyed this part so much mainly because this is something that I always thought and i always find myself, during reader-response, relating the text back to my own life.

Now efferent is the focus on information within the text and aesthetic is when a reader experiences a personal relationship to the text that focuses our attention on the emotional subtleties of its language and encourages us to make judgments. Determinate reading refers back to the facts of the test and indeterminate meaning is the "gaps" in the text such as actions that are not clearly explained or have multiple explanations.

Our psychology affects the meaning of texts based off of personal life affiliations and our identity theme. There is the belief that we project out identity theme into every situation we encounter and perceive the world through our own psychological experience. For example, if in class we are reading a poem about death and one student has recently had a close relative die they make perceive the text differently then another student in the class who has never experience a death within their family tree. Discovering an authors identity theme means to understand their fears, defenses, needs, and desires that they may project into their own writings. This goes back to the belief that some people have that you cannot write about what you do not know, therefore, deep down inside each author has experienced, to some degree, what they are writing about. I am also a firm believer of this fact.

Everyone stay safe if you are traveling today and I will see you all Wednesday!
-Kayleigh