Stanley Fish's Reader Response To Critical Theoretical Research

Stanley Fish(1936-),born in Providence,Rhode Island,USA,is an important theorist of contemporary reader response criticism.He advocated the theory of reader-response criticism which absorbed some propositions of reception aesthetics,deconstruction and psychoanalysis and emphasized that the significance of text lies in the traces of the response of text words in readers' brains.Fish's theory of reader-response criticism has exerted great influence on contemporary western literary theory and has become one of the classical theories of contemporary western literary theory.The main content of this paper is to study Fish's theory of reader-response criticism,to show readers' status and function in literature,and to reveal the deep implication of Fish's theory and its profound influence on contemporary literary theory.This paper consists of three parts: the preface,the body and the conclusion.The preface mainly combs the research status of Fish's reader-response criticism theory at home and abroad,expounds the purpose and significance of this study,and explores the research methods and innovations of the topic.The main body consists of three chapters:Chapter one focuses on Fish's reader-centered view of text meaning.This paper expounds Fish's theory from two perspectives: criticizing the text-centered theory and putting forward that the meaning of literature lies in the experience of readers.Taking various "sentences" as examples,it reveals that the process of reading this dynamic event is the real source of the meaning of the text,and then demonstrates Fish's concept of the meaning of the text.Chapter two discusses Fish's view of text reading.Starting with Fish's response analysis method based on diachronic reading,this paper derives the concept of "knowledgeable reader",which is also Fish's ideal reader,a scholarly reader,and then Fish's response to Paradise Lost.On the basis of text analysis,this paper explains Fish's view of text reading.Chapter three discusses Fish's later interpretation theory from the perspective of pragmatism.Fish attaches great importance to the social and group characteristics of human beings,suspends the deterministic factors in traditional hermeneutic theories,and puts the emphasis on the readers' experience,so that the creative reading activity of readers' interpretation gets more attention.This part will include Fish's interpretation concept,anti-essentialism interpretation strategy,and interpretation community under the principle of synergy.The conclusion part mainly makes an overall evaluation and analysis of Fish's theory of reader-response criticism.Fish's view that literature is the reader provides a new dimension for literary criticism and plays an important role in the history of criticism.With the continuous development and perfection of Fisher's theory,his theory of reader-response criticism has gradually transcended itself in the dynamic communication between the author and the reader.