Hans Robert Jauss, Literary History as a Challenge to Literary Theory, 1969

What feature of literature does Jauss believe is ignored by the formalist and Marxist schools of interpretation? (reception) How does each school view readers? (1 !" 1) How does the #participation of its addressees$ influence a literary wor%? (1 1) What does it mean to say that the relation between wor%& audience and new wor% is #a dialogical and at once processli%e$ one? (1 1) What will an understanding of this process yield? (1 se'uence of literary wor%s) 1& an understanding of the historical

What happens to the understanding of the first reader of a wor% as more receptions of future generations accumulate? (1 () What does it mean to say that literary history should ma%e #a conscious attempt at the formation of a canon$ but on the other hand& it should propose #a critical revision if not destruction of the received literary canon$? (1 () )re both aspects of this dual approach consistent with current critical practice? What are his seven #theses&$ and what is significant in each? 1* +he need for an aesthetics of reception and influence, What does Jauss see as wrong about the positivist view of history? (1 (& neglects the artistic character as well as the specific historicity of literature- #a literary wor% * * * is not a monument that monologically reveals its timeles essence$)* What metaphor does he use to describe the effect of a wor% of literature? (1 (& orchestration)

What is new about the idea that the words of the text #must& at the same time that they spea% to him& create an interlocutor capable of understanding them$? (1 .) What should philology (the study of language and literature) do in addition to understanding the ob/ect or nature of the literary wor% itself? (1 .& #the reflection on and description of the completion of this %nowledge as a moment of new understanding$) Why is the collection of literary facts not real history? (lac%s the #eventful character of a wor% of art&$ 1 .) How does Jauss differentiate between a historical0political event and a literary one? What is necessary in order for a literary event to continue to have an effect? (1 .) What would be necessary in order to create an ade'uate representation of literary history? (1 .& ability to ob/ectify this process) (* need to trace the reader1s expectations at the wor%1s appearance& including an understanding of its genre& antecedents and level of discourse*

What s%epticism expressed by 2ene Welle% does Jauss try to counter? (1 analysis can determine individual or collective state of consciousness)

3& no empirical

What does Jauss believe is left unexplained by 2oman Ja%obson1s notion of the distinction between langue and parole in the reception of a wor%? (1 3) What signals or instructions enable the reader to interpret the wor%? (1 3) What is evo%ed in the reader by the reading of a new text? (1 ) What may the text evo%e other than the repetition of the codes of earlier wor%s? What examples does Jauss give of wor%s which destroy the reader1s expectations of genre& style or form? (1 ) (4ervantes& 5iderot& 6erval) 4an you thin% of others? 7ven without specific historically specific signals& what factors may help a reader decode the text? (1 8& immanent poetics of the genre& relation to other literary wor%s of period& contrast between fiction and reality) .* )n aesthetic distance measures the disparity between the hori9on of expectations and the appearance of a new wor%* How may the effect of #aesthetic distance$ be created? (1 8& through negation of familiar experiences or through raising newly articulated experiences to the level of consciousness) What are some ways in which audiences can respond to this distance? (1 scattered approval& gradual or belated understanding) 8& acclaim& shoc%& 8)

What does Jauss define as the features of #culinary$ or entertainment art? (1

What happens when the original aesthetic distance disappears with time? (1 8" :) ;f their #beautiful form$ becomes self"evident& what must the reader do to #catch sight of their artistic character once again$? (1 :) Why does he moc% the idea that a wor% of literature is valuable only insofar as it reflects its age? (1 :) What happens when a wor% brea%s so completely with literary expectations that no one in its time understands it? 5oes it necessarily die? (1 :& an audience may gradually develop for it) What historical example does he give of the difference between a popular and aesthetic wor% which appeared at the same time? (1 :) What 'ualities made <anny less valuable and Madame =ovary a wor% of originality? 3* +he reconstruction of the hori9on of expectations enables one to pose 'uestions to which the text gave an answer& and thereby discover how the contemporary reader could have viewed and understood it* What can help in this process of reconstruction? (1 >& by comparison with wor%s that the author presupposed his contemporary audience to %now& gives example of the 2oman de 2enart)

What is wrong with the notion that the present"day critic can examine ob/ectively the wor%s of the past? (1 8!) What insight had Hans"?eorg ?adamer offered into the mode of understanding history? (1 8!& through logic of 'uestion and answer to the historical tradition) What is meant by 4ollingwood1s statement that #one can understand a text only when one has understood the 'uestion to which it is an answer$? (1 8!) How does he answer 2ene Welle%1s 'uestion& whether one should evaluate a literary wor% according to the perspective of the past& the present& or the #verdict of the ages$? (1 8!"81& he expands notion of the #verdict of the ages$ to include the successive unfolding of the potential for meaning in a wor% achieved by the #fusion of hori9ons$ in the encounter with the tradition) * @ne needs to view the individual wor% in the context of a #literary series$ to recogni9e its relative historical position and significance* (1 81)* What does it mean to spea% of #the eventful history of literature$? How can the new wor% solve formal and moral problems left behind by the last wor%& and present new problems in turn? )ccording to Jauss& what do the formalists believe is the nature of the evolution of literary forms? What is limiting about these views& in his opinion? (1 81& innovation for itself does not alone ma%e up artistic character& need to consider social context) What is gained by considering #literary evolution$ through an aesthetics of reception? (1 8(& merit of wor% not always immediately perceptible& a wor% in present creates the taste for understanding wor%s in the past) What examples does he give of the wor%s of a more recent author influencing the reception of past ones? (1 8(& Mallarme created greater audience for baro'ue poets) 4an you thin% of others? What does it mean to say that the new is not only an aesthetic category but an historical one? (1 8(& one as%s which historical moments first made new that which is new in a literary phenomenon& and how this altered the past& what is the history of aesthetic attitudes) 8* +he linguistic emphasis on synchronic analyses""the study of processes at one moment of time""could be used in literary history by studying a cross"section of wor%s of a single period& and comparing this with other such cross"sections* What does Jauss believe would be the purpose of such a study? (1 8.) How can we choose the literary events to be studied? (1 83& from history of its influence and the perspective of the present) :* Aiterary history is a special history distinct from history at large* How does the reader /udge literature? (1 83& against the bac%ground of other wor%s of art and of everyday experience of life)

What does it mean to say that literature may summon the reader to moral reflection? (1 83& grasped in modalities of 'uestion and answer& problem and solution) How should we respond to the gap between history and literature? What should be done& in contrast to accepting the notion that history is literally reflected or represented in literary wor%s? (1 83) What does Jauss see as the purpose of literature? (1 83& emancipatory& #it competes with other arts and social forces in the emancipation of man%ind from its natural& religious& and social bonds) 4an you see relationships between Jauss1s theories and those of others we have considered? ;n what ways may he have influenced Wolfgang ;ser? )re there any aspects of Jauss1s theories which might be sub/ect to criti'ue? 5o JaussBs views reflect current critical practice? page numbers are from the Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism& (!!1 1 3:"83