Reading is a subjective experience

Written for a Writing about Literature course.

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          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 “learned to take great pleasure” when reading it (305). She has been able to read the book, in the way Rabinowitz describes it, as an authorial audience. Both Kolodny and Rabinowitz are able to demonstrate that one does not have to share an author’s perspective in order to be able to read and appreciate a literary text. However, this impersonal approach to reading a text does not mean that we can expect everyone to reach the same conclusions from a certain text. This is because readers’ experiences are too varied and so deeply-seated in each individual that it is virtually impossible to be able to construct one grand interpretation of a text.

          Even though Rabinowitz concedes that his authorial reading is not “the only or even the best way to read”, he still concludes that without considering his so-called authorial audience a reading of a text can be incomplete (263). However, even when trying to understand the author’s perspective, we can still come up with interpretations and conclusions that will not necessarily adjust to the author’s intentions. Kolodny appropriately points out in her essay “the impossibility of grounding a reading in the imputation of authorial intention because the further removed the author is from us, so too must be her or his systems of knowledge and belief, points of view, and structures of vision” (303). In fact, not even the author may be able to give a clear interpretation of what he was trying to say when he first wrote his novel or poem. In this sense, Rabinowitz claim in trying to ask readers to give an authorial reading of a text seems an improbable task.

          I do not suggest that trying to figure out the author’s intentions when writing a text is unnecessary as it certainly may have its value. But trying to give such as reading to a text may have little to do with figuring out the author’s intentions and actually become something of a guessing game. Rabinowitz establishes that the reader has to be “in the right place to begin with” yet this “right place” seems very ambiguous as he asserts that even “a certain amount of luck” is needed in order to read as the author intended (261). There is actually no “right place” and an authorial reading, not just often, but always will result in an incomplete reading of a text. Rabinowitz defends his authorial reading by placing value in the initial question of “What is the author saying?” when we first approach a text (263). But the questions readers are really asking are “what do we interpret that the author is saying?” and “how do we interpret this text?” If a teacher were to circumscribe to the mere question of “What is the author saying?” without asking students to bring their own experiences and personal doubts that arise from the text, their responses will likely be more limited than ever. In this way, it is clear that the subjective reader takes precedence over whatever the author’s intentions were.

          Being conscious that how we read is an experience unique to each individual helps us know that there is not one particular way of interpreting a text. While it is possible to read impersonally, focusing on the author’s intention ultimately limits the possibilities of engaging with a text. What really matters when we read is the individual reader’s interpretation of the text and not the author’s intentions with his literary work, since, in the end, reading is above all a subjective experience.

Works Cited

Kolodny, Annette. “Dancing through the Minefield: Some Observations on the Theory,

          Practice, and Politics of a Feminist Literary Criticism.” Falling into Theory: Conflicting

          Views on Reading Literature. Ritcher, David H. 2nd ed. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin’s, 

          2000. 301-309. Print.

Rabinowitz, Peter. “Actual Reader and Authorial Reader.” Falling into Theory: Conflicting 

          Views on Reading Literature. Ritcher, David H. 2nd ed. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin’s, 

          2000. 257-267. Print.