Reading is a subjective experience
Written for a Writing about Literature course. ~*~*~ What we have been taught as we learn to read, our culture, our traditions and even our personal experiences shapes the way we approach and interpret any story, poem, novel, play or literary text we come across. As a result of this, the reader virtually takes over the literary text by adding new meanings that the author most likely did not initially intend to give. Alternatively, Peter Rabinowitz, in “Actual Reader and Authorial Reader”, claims that we should also know how to read objectively, keeping in mind the author’s initial intent. I argue, however, that what ultimately determines how we read depends on our own experiences as subjective individuals. Annette Kolodny, in her essay “Dancing through the Minefield”, reveals that when reading Paradise Lost she was aware that she did not agree with issues brought up in the text, but at the same time she had ...