Two Students, One Text.

Yes, I know that the title of this blog post sounds like the beginning of a horrible, possibly degrading literary joke, but I do think that the activity in class was useful in helping me understand reader-response theory and phenomenology. Attempting to convey in words where the meaning of a text was between two individuals was a great deal harder than it first sounds to be. For example, I came up with multiple interpretations: the meaning is in the text itself; the meaning is in each individual; the meaning is in each individual and the text itself. Additionally, I noted at the time of the activity that perhaps the text’s *true* meaning was if the two individuals – with different backgrounds, personalities and intellects – could agree, more or less, on one solidified meaning in the one text that they both read. “Would that make the text’s meaning universal?” I wrote, thinking at the time that it is the universal meaning that is most important. 

The more the class delved into discussion, the more I began to realize that perhaps the universal meaning isn’t the most crucial thing in a text. Just as each member of the class had a different opinion or thought about the activity, each individual would have a different interpretation or feeling about a text and thus to each person, that meaning would mean the most to him/her.

I think that we tend to only consider our own personal feelings about a particular text when analyzing literature instead of keeping in mind that there are multiple interpretations, and possibly something to learn from what other people think. I find that through communication, discussion and debate with others, I can better develop my own personal ideas about a text. A prime example of this is our class discussions: reading the text at home is much different than when I can listen to a number of other people speak about the same text. I find it helps me understand the readings more than just taking notes by myself (I think Wolfgang Iser is correct when he titles his essay “Interaction between Text and Reader”, but I also think we could expand this into something a little better: “Interactions between Text and Reader, and Other Readers”).

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