Reader's Response: Death of the Author, Rise of the Reader
READER'S RESPONSE APPROACH
I. INTRODUCTION
Do you believe that the reader is as important as the author? The readers are the ones who pay good money to buy and read the book, and they are the ones who give meaning to a literary piece. They also give life to the literary work, in a place called imagination. According to the Shmoop Editorial Team (2011), the Reader-Response theory states that “readers are just as important as the authors who write literary works”. Reader-Response theorist believes that readers are active participant who create meaning to literature. The meaning of a text, according to them (the theorist), exists between the written text and the mind of the reader. Each different person has their own meaning of the text written, as they visualize in their minds eye what is happening in the story or poem. What this approach is trying to tell us, is that we, the readers, have as much power over a literary text, for we are the ones who interpret the meaning of a literary piece. It is up to the reader to come up with their own conclusion to a story.
This brings us to the two literary pieces which was assigned for this particular approach. First we have a novel by Dan Brown entitled Inferno, and the poem I Am The Universe (Ako Ang Daigdig) by Alejandro Abadilla. The given interpretations or responses are based on our agreed understanding of the literary pieces. We also included a few backgrounds and facts about the author and the pieces written.
II. DISCUSSION
Here is a little background check on Dante Alighieri and Inferno. Dante Alighieri was an Italian poet born in the 11th and 12th century. He is best known for his epic poem The Divine Comedy, which is considered the greatest Italian piece of literature ever written. He was born in Florence, Italy. Inferno is the first part of The Divine Comedy, wherein it illustrates Dante’s journey through hell (Softschools, 2005). According to Sarij (2013), Dante’s journey through the afterlife began the night before Good Friday to the Wednesday after Easter in the spring of 1300. According to Dante, there are nine levels or ring in hell, and the demon himself is in the 9th circle.
Holzwarth (n.d.) states that The Divine Comedy is a 14,233 lines, and it was originally written in Dante’s native Tuscan dialect. This was also stated in the book by Brown, and it really blew our mind to know that it was a very long poem, and it had us thinking, did Dante have a social life back then.
That’s just a little background on Inferno (the original), since it is connected (in lots of ways) in the novel by Dan Brown with the same name. So who is Dan Brown? He is also the author of well known novels like the controversial The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons, and The Lost Symbol, to name a few. He currently resides in New England with his wife.
Inferno by Dan Brown is the 4th book featuring the iconic Robert Langdon (the other are mentioned above). The story started with someone jumping off a building, which is a typical start to any Dan Brown novel. Early suspense builds up the tension. Robert Langdon wakes up with no memory of the past 36 hours, and he wakes up in a hospital, with someone trying to kill him. Did we mention that he was carrying an item labeled with the biohazard symbol that he doesn’t know about? Well, he was carrying it anyway. He is suffering from mild amnesia since he was shot in the head by an agent from The Consortium, an organization that works in the shadows. That’s James Bond type stuff right there. The way the organization works is like those contractors, or guns for hire. They just do what their client wants with no questions asked.
We would like to respond to this lines from the book, which Robert Langdon thought about in his mind while he was remembering information about Dante and Inferno:
“Langdon’s course on Dante always included an entire section on the illustrious artwork inspired by the Inferno. In addition to Botticelli’s celebrated Map of Hell, there was Rodin’s timeless sculpture of The Three Shades from the Gates of Hell… Stradanus’s illustration of Phlegyas paddling through submerged bodies on the river Styx… William Blake’s lustful sinners swirling through an eternal tempest…”
This lines from the book indicates that Inferno also became an inspiration for other classical writers and painters. Among those pieces inspired by Inferno, the most celebrated may as well be Sandro Botticelli’s Map of Hell or La Mappa dell Inferno in Italian.
This lines from Langdon himself makes a strong point.
“Dante’s Inferno. Inspiring foreboding pieces of art since 1330.”
We can say that that is a good point, especially when you look at that map by Botticelli. Botticelli was around after Dante. One could say that he studied Dante’s work, and from that work he gained the idea of painting the Map of Hell. Paradise Lost is also a good example of a literary piece that was inspired from Inferno. With this facts one can say that The Divine Comedy is one of the most influential books in history. If you don’t believe us, maybe you can ask the Catholic Church since they have a lot to be thankful for in Dante.
The other issue we want to tackle is the fact of releasing virus just to control the population growth. Zobrist created the virus, which was a vector type virus, to control the human population. But no, it did not kill millions of people. The virus was designed to cause sterility to the infected host, which will thereby reduce population growth to a more stable level. In our honest view of these event in the novel is that why create a virus? Overpopulation is a global issue, yes, but creating a virus just to control the population growth of the world? That’s a brilliantly insane idea. And he gained inspiration from Inferno? That’s just messed up. There are other ways to tackle such an issue, and playing God is not one of them. Who does Zobrist think he is? He could have used his brain for something more…proper than a virus. It may be a noble intention, but the method is not mutual to the intent.
“Ako ang Daigdig” or “I am The Universe” in English version is a poem written by a Filipino poet Alejandro Abadilla. Upon reading the poem, there were several guide questions that an individual might ask about his/her reading experience: “Why do I like or dislike this work so much? How do I read this work in a way that might explain my attitude toward the work? Does the work touch on or challenge my identity theme? Does my reading connect to an interpretive community? Does my gender, race, class, sexual orientation, or another aspect of my identity have anything to do with my response? Does it confused me?”. The interpretation of the poem might gain a tension between the implied reader and the actual reader. Implied reader is the one who established by response-inviting structures of the text whereas the actual reader is the one who brings his own experiences and preoccupations to the text. However this two type of reader share common denominator, they might both be in need to deploy other different reader-response approaches such as the textual reader-response approach, the experiential form of reader’s response, psychological aspects of reader’s response and social aspects of reader’s response. With that, this poem will be analyzed through different types of Reader’s Response Approach.
In textual reader-response approach, the poem used the first person point of view, describing the world as himself. Every stanzas started from the pronoun or word “I” except from 40th and 53rd lines. Actually there were only 5 words in the poem which used repeatedly, the “I”, “Am”, “The”, “Poetry”, and “World”. There are four stanzas and fifty- five lines . The poem wanted to proclaim to the reader that the speaker is the world, the poetry. It also talked about the immortality of the speaker in the poem. It is justified on 12th and 13th lines: “The Never-ending Me, The Undying Me” and from 34-35 lines, “I am the Life, That is Eternal”. Therefore, the speaker or the poet himself, wanted the readers to believe in him that he is the world of poetry or the poetry in the world and vice versa.
The central idea of the poem lies on the poem itself. 'I'. The word 'I' was present in every stanzas and it was placed in every first lines. The poem begins with 'I' and ends up in 'I'. The poem is actually referring to itself alone by repeatedly emphasizing the word 'I'. It seems like the poem is talking and shouting Hey! See me! yes, it is me, It's me, the poem you're reading right now" ,"I am I which is unending the which is undying the poem of the world'', I am a work of an art that lives forever.’’ Poetry is an example of an art. The theme of the poem was all about the immortality of work of an art. An art that has a soul, body and mind, an art that has life.
''I am the feeling that is free" mention refers to the person’s emotion that lives in the poem. Poem has feeling and emotions that creates a mood and tone. It can be the feeling of happiness, sadness, anger, loneliness, empathy, gratitude and fear etc. Through poem people can freely express his deepest feelings and desires For an art is an expression of a man’s inner soul, an art is an spontaneous overwhelming spirit. Therefore the sense of 'feeling' is the soul of a poem. The feelings and emotions is one of the ingredients that blew poem into life. The poem also describes itself as the feeling that is free, the image that lives, it means that the importance of feeling and the living power of poetry being basic premises of Literary Romanticism, and the life without end again a hint of the immortality in words. And it also shows the feeling/image/life/poem/I, which we can interpret as a movement of reduction and expansion, from feelings to image, from image to life which means the image becomes representative of life, from life to poem means the external world’s influence in meaning, ending with the insistent ''I” which we can interpret that the narrator shows how he believe on himself in making his own style in his poem.
Henceforth the intensity of emotion in the poem will depends upon the choice of words and the use of figurative language. More than meaning words has the power to create emotion upon the reader. Words can represent as the body or structure of the poem. Words create feelings and feelings make an image. In the third stanza "I am the image that lives". One of the elements of the poem is imagery images that challenge the power of imagination. For an art is about imagination beyond limits. For an art is limitless. Some images are absent in the real material world, but can be perceived by the mind. For the imagination can perceive which cannot be seen by our naked eye. Imagery represent as the mind.
In connection with psychological approach of literary criticism with psychological aspects of reader’s response, the poem also include the affective domain that help the readers interpret the text. According to Schmitz (2012), “when we read, we are continually connecting the text to our lives, almost as if the literary work is speaking to us personally”. And this is how psychological reader response helps the reader to better understand this phenomenon. The poem focused on the subjectivity of the speaker. The speaker claimed that he is the world, the poetry. With that, it explained the gender superiority of the speaker himself. This is where how the readers connect this literary piece on their personal lives. In line 1-6, “I am the world, I am the poetry, I am the world of poetry”, superiority took place. The speaker himself compared his life into the world and poetry. It will justify through lines 7-10, “I am the World of Poetry, The Poetry of the World”. These two words, “world” and “poetry”, contain a single but meaningful definition of life. Life is the world and poetry. And it is easy to distinguish that the life of the author is in the poetry or writing a poem about the world. Poetry is his world, and he exists in his own world of poetry. It somehow talked about the author who is escaping from reality. In his own world of poetry, the author is free, “I, The Passionately Free”, from lines 31-33. Read this lines from 25-30, “I Am the Poetry To the World, I Am the World Of Poetry I”.
III. CONCLUSION
The main concern of the reader response approach is to uncover the creativity of human minds through interpreting a text with by the uses of varied lens and perspective. A text is recreated every time someone new reads it, and in the process the meaning of the text becomes increasingly richer and wider. Therefore, the reader response approach teaches that there is no absolute. There is no single and fixed meaning of the poem. It enables us to examine the complexity of human behavior and motivation. It desires to show the uniqueness of every response of an individual. Promotes to freely express oneself. Of the two interpretation there is no such right or wrong interpretation but other might not. Readers respond differently. The gap and conflict between different interpretations can be solve through 'understanding' and 'acceptance' of other. Every reader must broaden his perspective and widen his horizon. For the world doesn't only revolves in his own.
LIST OF REFERENCES
BOOK:
Brown, D. (2013) Inferno
New York, USA: Anchor Books/Penguin Random House
INTERNET:
Holzwarth, L. (n.d.) Interesting Related Facts – Quicklet on Dante’s Inferno. Retrieved on
August 2017 from http://www.hyperink.com/Interesting-Related-Facts-
b1434a16
Sarij (2013) Dante’s Inferno: Fun Facts
Retrieved on August 2017 from https://theviewfromsarisworld.com/2013/11/26/dantes-
inferno-fun-facts/amp/
Schmitz, A. (2012) Chapter 6 Writing about Readers: Applying Reader-Response Theory
Retrieved on August 2017 from https://2012bools.lardbucket.org/books/creating-literary-
Analysis-a-peer-review-sheets.html#pennington_1.0-ch_s05
Shmoop Editorial Team (2008) Reader-Respone Theory Retrieved on August 2017 from
https://www.shmoop.com/reader-response-theory/
Softschools Editorial Team (2005) Dante Alighieri Facts. Retrieved on August 2017 from http://www/softschools.com/facts/authors/dante_alighieri_facts/1541/