Louise Rosenblatt

Louise Michelle Rosenblatt (August 231904 - February 82005) was an American literary critic.

She is best known for her influential text "Literature as Exploration" (1938), in which she argues that the act of reading literature involves a transaction between the reader and the text, where each "transaction" is a unique experience. Her work made her a well-known reader-response theorist.

She attended Barnard College, the women's college at Columbia University in New York City. Her roommate in college was Margaret Mead, the anthropologist.

In 1992, Louise Rosenblatt was inducted into the International Reading Association's Reading Hall of Fame. [Reading Hall of Fame membership, Retrieved from http://www.readinghalloffame.org/deceased.html on 11/07/2007.]

Works

*"Literature as Exploration" (1938). Literature as Exploration. New York: Appleton-Century; (1968). New York: Noble and Noble; (1976). New York: Noble and Noble; (1983). New York: Modern Language Association; (1995). New York: Modern Language Association.

* "Toward a cultural approach to literature", in "College English, 7", 459-466. (1946).

* "The enriching values of reading". In W. Gray (Ed.), "Reading in an age of mass communication" (pp. 19-38). Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries. (1949).

* "The acid test in the teaching of literature". "English Journal", 45, 66-74. (1956).

* "Research development seminar in the teaching of English". New York: New York University Press. (1963).

* "The poem as event" in "College English, 26", 123-8. (1964).

* "A way of happening", in "Educational Record, 49", 339-346. (1968).

* "Towards a transactional theory of reading", in "Journal of Reading Behavior, 1(1)", 31-51. (1969)

* "Literature and the invisible reader", in "The Promise of English: NCTE 1970 distinguished lectures." Champaign, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. (1970).

* "What facts does this poem teach you?", in "Language Arts, 57", 386-94. (1980).

* "The transactional theory of the literary work: Implications for research", in Charles Cooper. (Ed.), "Researching response to literature and the teaching of literature". Norwood, NJ: Ablex. (1985).

* "Viewpoints: Transaction versus interaction — a terminological rescue operation", in "Research in the Teaching of English, 19", 96-107. (1985).

* "The aesthetic transaction", in "Journal of Aesthetic Education", 20 (4), 122-128. (1986).

* "Literary Theory", in J. Flood, J. Jensen, D. Lapp, & J. Squire (Eds.), "Handbook of research on teaching the English language arts" (pp. 57-62). New York: Macmillan. (1991).

*"The Reader, The Text, The Poem: The Transactional Theory of the Literary Work" Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois Press; (1994). Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois Press.

*"Making Meaning with Texts: Selected Essays" (2005)

References

* Clifford, J. (editor) (1991), "The experience of reading: Louise Rosenblatt and reader-response theory"

External links

* [http://www.ncte.org/about/over/history/119643.htm Obituary]
* [http://www.ncte.org/elem/awards/educator/113260.htm 1999 award citation]
* [http://www.vccaedu.org/inquiry/inquiry-spring97/i11chur.html 1997 article "The Significance of Louise Rosenblatt on the Field of Teaching Literature"]
* [http://www.education.miami.edu/ep/Rosenblatt/ 1999 Interview with Louise Rosenblatt by University of Miami students]