Blog Post 1

I had initially ranked the categories in a way that relied heavily on outside sources and the author's personal beliefs.  I was thinking very generally about literature when I ranked them that way, but after reading the poem "My Last Duchess,"  I had a whole new perspective on what matters in a piece of literature.  Because this piece seems to be set in a different time, I felt that it was best to understand the cultural context and the etymology of the vocabulary used in the poem, rather than worrying about the author in any way.  My "after" rankings definitely comply with New Criticism, although I wouldn't say that it's my preferred method of literary criticism. I am looking forward to reader-response criticism because I believe that most authors think about their audience while they're writing.  I'm definitely interested in comparing actual reader's responses with ideal reader's responses.