While employing the Hegelian categories of the «
universal» and the «
objective» as a
means of understanding the new reality created by modern man, Kierkegaard came to understand the modern consciousness as the product of a Faustian choice.
In opposition to narrative criticism, with its focus on the supposedly
objective and stable text, and in opposition to structuralism's focus on impersonal and
universal codes, reader - response criticism arose to argue for the essential role of the reader in the process of making
meaning.