Reader Response

I found myself quite impressed with the presentations today made by each group. The were didactic and entertaining and solidified the main thoughts of feminism and reader response criticism in my head forever. Claire A.K.A. "Rosie" brought up an interesting point about how you can read something completely different when looking through the eyes of a feminist. Jon A.K.A. "Mary" added that the glasses you wear decide what you will or will not see in a work. This seems to be where one group begins reaching its finger tips into the other, because it is through the reader response critics that one is given the "right" to read a text through the eyes of a feminist or any other mentality one desires. I am thankful for the permission, haha, because I often find myself reading something in a way that relates it to my own experiences. I also enjoy melding works of literature to fit my emotions in a way that allows me to meet certain needs I have. Were this to be a crime, I would likely be in prison the rest of my life. In fact, it occurs to me that if the only way that people read a text was through the perspective of new criticism, they would eventually find that reading would lose some of its appeal. It seems that what can draw us so deeply into a work is the ways that we can interpret and discover new meanings through it.

Dr. Sexson made the point that there is a value to looking at the text purely for what the text is, as well as looking at it for what it is to you personally. I completely agree with this and feel that there is a time and a place for each kind of criticism to rear its claws and fight for its point of view.

During the reader response presentation a poem was read and elaborated on, yet I didn't get a chance to gather my thoughts on it because hearing it once is not enough. As a result I am posting it here for the benefit of anyone else who wishes to read it a bit slower and spend some time mulling over its contents.

THE FLEA.
by John Donne

MARK but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is ;
It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead ;
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two ;
And this, alas ! is more than we would do.

O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
Though parents grudge, and you, we're met,
And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now.
'Tis true ; then learn how false fears be ;
Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me,
Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.

---

Source:
Donne, John. Poems of John Donne. vol I.
E. K. Chambers, ed.
London: Lawrence & Bullen, 1896. 1-2.


I even found a youtube video of a man reciting this poem if you are interested.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yrSGRWTOzQ&feature=related