For the mini-anthology I have chosen the following poems: “Song” by Edmund Waller, “Her Kind” by Anne Sexton, and “Neutral Tones” by Thomas Hardy. The short stories are “The Storm” and “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin. The analysis that I prefer to use would be the Reader Response Criticism, as far as I do not want to rely on the facts, psychology, history, or common sense, but rather form my own opinion of the texts. “Neutral Tones” shows us a scene that is absolutely neutral, dull, and somewhat depressing. Hardy uses the language that perfectly fits into the picture of sadness and loneliness. While reading through the verses, one is actually forced to feel the tranquility of the poem. The theme of the piece appears to be love that is lost forever. In “Her Kind” I can easily notice the anger and anxiety that the author tried to incorporate into the poem. Most likely, certain feministic thoughts were the building stones of this poem, as far as the writer is referring to a rebel witch, in order to describe her own personality and way of thinking. As a reader, I believe this poem to be an outcry, a rebellious cry for freedom that is meant to hit the people around you. The “Song” is another poem related to love and relationships. Different from “Neutral Tones”, it is rather lively and passionate. The reader is much affected by the main hero’s zeal and desire for a woman.

“The Story of an Hour” is a short story that has a great influence on the reader. In a small amount of time, one is able to have an insight into the life of a person, and as soon as one is ready to conceive additional information, the main hero of the story dies. Moreover, she dies of happiness. I was extremely impressed by the story and consider it to be one of the best short stories I have ever read. It is vital to use the Reader Response strategy to analyze this particular text, due to the fact that I am almost sure that every person will come across something fascinating while reading it. I have already spent certain time analyzing “The Storm” and showed how the analytical method I have selected successfully works on the plot and meaning of the story. Therefore, I would like to emphasize that this short story is a perfect field for Reader Response critical system. This conclusion comes from the belief that this story contains many points that could be interpreted and questioned differently by various readers. In essence, the mini-anthology that I have constructed can be best analyzed by a mixture of different criticisms. However, under the condition of choosing only one system, Reader Response is the best way to really understand the true meaning of the stories and poems listed above, due to the fact that all of these works are about human feelings, either good or bad, they cannot be universal.