The Reader's Participation in Critical Approaches

The reader as one of the three angles of literary criticism triangle besides its two other angles i.e. the writer and literary work is considered as one of the effective factors in studying a literary work in critical circles. Some critics call him consumer on the one hand and producer on the other hand because of his interpretations and perceptions. Accordingly, literary works are divided into two groups, written and spoken. Although supporters of some critical approaches pay their attention to the work and its writer, a great deals of them consider the reader’s taste and talent and cultural fields as their main criteria in evaluating his literary works. In this direction, we can consider the approach of reader-centered (reader-response theory) and writer’s death theory (Death of the Author) as the central part of this study. In addition to investigating theories related to determining the role of the reader in evaluation of a literary work and the opponent's views who know the literary work as the only evaluation criterion and supporter's views who consider the reader's rate of grieves as evaluation criterion, this study describes that we can trust the reader's judgment in evaluating the works just when he has enough knowledge and tools and is far from personal attitudes.