Reader-response theory
A critical approach arguing that meaning is created not by texts alone but through readers' engagement with textual features. Reader-response theory acknowledges how different readers, reading at different times and contexts, produce different interpretations.
Real World
When Toni Morrison's 'Beloved' was published in 1987, white American critics and Black American critics often produced radically different readings of the same novel — demonstrating that meaning is co-created between text and reader, shaped by lived experience.
Exam Focus
When applying reader-response theory, always anchor your alternative reading to specific textual evidence — examiners reward interpretation supported by the text.
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