Literary Criticism

I TAUGHT MYSELF TO LIVE SIMPLY

Anna Akhmatova

Reader Response Theory considers readers' reactions to literature as vital to interpreting the meaning of the text. However, reader-response criticism can take a number of different approaches. A critic deploying reader-response theory can use a psychoanalytic lens, a feminists lens, or even a structuralist lens. What these different lenses have in common when using a reader response approach is they maintain "...that what a text is cannot be separated from what it does" (Tyson 154).

The Poem

THE INTERPRETATION:

Apparently, by writing poetry, she seems to be able to dissect herself from the world. Surrounding herself in her own thoughts, she begins to understand more about it. The poor, the ugly, the rich, and the beautiful; she takes in all their features, mesmerizing herself in a world of only her words. Simple is her pleasant reminder of the world she lives in. She writes of a place she hopes to belong to, a place of longing, she seems to have given up hope for it though; deciding that it’s much too complicate to hope for something like that, and preferring to keep it simple. Clearly, this poem was written in what appears to be a somewhat painful moment, with a lot of emotion and hidden meanings behind it.