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Jauss Literary History As A Challenge To Literary Theory Summary

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Hans Robert Jauss- Literary History as a Challenge to Literary Theory Jauss proposes several theses: Removal of the so called “historical objectivism” and an emphasis on grounding “traditional aesthetics of production and representation”. Literary history is a process of aesthetic reception and production between the reader and author. Positivistic view of history as objective is fallible, since the historicity of literature continues to generate new interpretations and experiences among its readers, which transcends the text into a “contemporary existence”. since history is not produced through the process of aesthetic reception, it is only pseudo-history. Analysis of the literary experience should be done through an “objectifiable system of expectations”. This system evokes the reader’s horizon of expectation, formed by “a preunderstanding of the genre”, “form and themes of already familiar works”, and distinguishing “between poetic and practical language”. Neither the individual state of consciousness nor a collective state of consciousness …show more content…

The horizon of expectations is the frame of reference within which people process a text at a particular moment in time. Jauss talks about the horizon of expectation as something that is communal and not the belonging to one individual. The audience approaches new texts with a set of expectations and information that it holds. Thus, a text is never read objectively, but is subjected to the audience’s horizon of expectation. The audience’s understanding of a text and its ability to relate to the text depends on its horizon of expectations. Therefore the horizon of expectations is an ongoing process; the more new information encountered, which is somewhat related to the information which already exists, the more the horizon of expectations will expand. Hence, the process of reception is an ongoing relationship between readers and

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