Methods

Intertexuality - reading the text in dialog with other texts

Rhetorical criticism

Narrative criticism

Reader-response criticism - assessing how readers (or hearers) would respond, should respond, or were expected to respond to the text.

Reception criticism - like reader-response criticism, but tending to look at the reactions to the text across time and cultures.

Speech-act theory - assessing the range of performative functions.

Discourse analysis

Point-of-view analysis

Readers

Who is reading the text? We don't have any way of doing surveys to determine the answer. We can be careful to understand the following perspectives:

The actual reader - who were the first readers (or hearers) of the text?

The implied reader - what assumptions does the text make about the reader?

The ideal reader - what response does the text want the actual readers to have?