Experiencing a story, a poem, a play - a about the need to get approach towards the literary work to understand it in the right way

Reading Response – Experiencing a story, a poem, a play Introduction “ Experiencing a story, a poem, a play” is a literary work that captured the interest of many as it talks about the way a story, a poem or a play is interpreted and connected to the reader’s mind. It is true that many people do not have the approach towards the literary work to understand and analyze it in the way it is expected. This is because of the lack of knowledge about the literary forms and approaches. As the text tells us that there are many situations in which the literary work is experienced, and the reader has to grasp the imagination to successfully understand the literature. However, readers often fail to understand the experience of the literature and find it difficult to grasp the concept, for this they need to know the approaches and forms of literature that they are going through. Connecting what is being read to what is being experienced can be challenging and this is what the text explains us.
It is more interesting because it gives the understanding and knowledge of the different forms of literature that most of the readers do not understand while going through the literature. It is evident that fewer people have interests in poems and plays as they are the ones who understand the framework, for others, this text is very interesting as it tells about the forms to help them understand the literary work that they read. The introduction about the genre, imagination, experience and the humor gives an interesting aspect to the reader of this text.
As outlined in this chapter, the approach of the reader should be present in order to experience the literary work. There are several ways to approach the literary criticism. Literary criticism means analyzing, understanding and interpreting what is being expressed. A reader is the critic and he can analyze the literary work only when he understands and experiences the work. In order to interpret and examine a story, poem or play the approach that the reader will use is the reader-response approach. In order to get into the journey of literature which means the reader has to connect to what is being said, analyze it by considerations and draw conclusions by the help of his response. The reader has to find a personal link to the literature especially the poetry or play. The reader-response approach is the most popularly used approach in literature (Trace, 2002).
The story, poem or play is often fictional and uses themes which relate to the author’s viewpoint and so readers often find it difficult to understand or experience. The journey to literature is connecting the imagination of the author to one’s own imagination. Since the reading of a story, poem, or play drags the reader to an imaginary world, leaving behind the situations of the world in which the reader is breathing and living to an imaginary world created by the author. In order to apply the reader-response approach for such literary works, it is important for the reader to connect and relate the literature to their real lives and their own imaginations so that they can find a specific aspect of the work. In order to create an analytical essay about the story, poem or play, the reader must make sure he is vigilant towards the questions that what captured his interest, what feelings did he get, did it connect to his life, how does it relate to other works, what is the motivation to connect to this literary work and did this connection enhance understanding of new things.
This approach may be challenging as the story, poems and plays are written in the author’s viewpoint. The reader must give away his surrounding world while experiencing the literature in order to analyze and connect to it. Moreover, to experience these forms of literature, the reader must have the intention to turn himself to the imaginary world which is described. A critical response to the stories, poems and plays of fiction need full concentration. Connecting and experiencing the literature also needs a mood as at times readers wish to read the work that matches up with their mood of that time. Thus, the authors often use humor, farce or ambiguity in their writing to involve the reader in their imaginary activities. These elements are merely a delight in the work which is put in by the author (Trace, 2002).
However, connecting to the literature work such as story, poem or play may be challenging but once it is formed, it is much easier for the reader to relate through the reader-response approach of literary criticism.
References
Journey into Literature.
Trace A. (2002) Literature: Its Opponents and Its Power. University Press of America