Reader-Response vs. New Criticism

New Criticism vs. Reader-Response A piece of work can be evaluated in plenty of ways. Critique methods such as Reader-Response, Deconstructive Criticism, New Criticism, and many others act as examples of literary evaluations. All of the critique methods share similarities, but differ in other ways. Reader-Response and New Criticism, for example, share characteristics but they are also two very opposing things. Reader-Response focuses on attention towards the text influenced by the reader’s thoughts. New Criticism aims towards the text with no influence, but the text alone. The two methods share the same features such as excluding the author’s intentions and recognizing details from the texts, and they also contrast by having a different analysis and objective. The factors of the two criticisms both reject the author’s intentions and are directed towards finding the meaning of a text. New Criticism searches for a meaning but does not allow the author’s idea to influence the process. Reader-Response does the same thing. The critique points out the message without the author’s thoughts. In result, the concept of not having the author involved in the studying process enhances the reader to really focus on the text. In another sense, both are forms of criticism aiming for a meaning behind the written content. The interpretations will result differently in each literary analysis; however, they still possess the same purpose. The similar features between New Criticism and Reader-Response are defined in a generalized sense compared to their differences. On the other hand, Reader-Response differs from New Criticism because they interpret meanings in another way, have different views, and focus differently too. The purpose of Reader-Response is to read closely and understand the meaning through what the reader believes it means. Reader-Response invites the reader to think of as many interpretations as they can; in other words, there are no limits as to how many