|
|
|
|
|
|
|
the poetical and the practical functions of language (17377); in this case one also analyzes the literary system. Yet it should be obvious (even if Jauss fights shy of it) that if one wishes to give an accurate account of how a work acted on the expectations of its readers, hearers or spectators, one also has to describe the audience. Later, Jauss admitted this and tried to disentangle the various meanings of 'horizon of expectation'. He proposed to distinguish between a literary (or even 'intra-literary') horizon of expectation, inscribed in the work, and a social one, brought to the work by the reader.19 Yet this still seems to conflate the subject and the object of the expectation: the work 'expects' not only literary, but also social attitudes in its readers, whereas these readers expect from the work the articulation not only of social, but also of literary norms. Once we have clarified this, we are in a position to specify which kind of 'horizon of expectation' Jauss in fact uses in his attempt to reconcile aesthetics and history: it is the horizon of expectation of the audience, comprising both the literary features of the work and the social implications of its contents. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
To begin with aesthetics: originally Jauss believed that he could establish not only the aesthetic character, but even the aesthetic value of a literary work from the past with the help of the horizon of expectation: the greater the distance between the work and the expectations of its original audience, the more valuable he supposed the work to be (17779). This one-sided and simplistic view was a typical product of the revolutionary spirit of the late 1960s, as Jauss soon realized, and in 1972 he delivered another public lecture at Constance, in which he openly repudiated his earlier 'aesthetics of negativity'; subsequently, he elaborated a theory of aesthetic experience which allowed literature (at least before the modern era) to affirm or to establish norms as well as to negate them.20 On this amended view, the horizon of expectation no longer serves to determine aesthetic value; does it still serve to account for aesthetic character? This must seem doubtful, because a comparison of a literary work with the horizon of expectation of its audience necessarily focuses on the newness (or otherwise) of the aesthetic experience, not on the aesthetic experience itself. 'Negativity' has not been eliminated, because it is inherent in the concept of 'expectation'. We will meet with the same bias when we turn to Jauss's treatment of history. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
It is important to realize that 'history' in Jauss has two meanings: chronological development (as against timelessness) and 'general' history (as against 'intra-literary' history). Correspondingly, when he wishes to give an account of the 'historical' character of literature, he has to explain two things: first, how literature evolves in time; second, how it partakes of what |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
19 See Jauss (1975) 328, 33739. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
20 The lecture was published as Jauss (1972); it contains in nuce the theory of aesthetic experience as presented at far greater length in Jauss (1977a) and finally in Jauss (1982) 17359. |
|
|
|
|
|