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what one could call an 'objectivist' and a 'subjectivist' position we will encounter again. |
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More than the work reception work model, the work reception reception model has stimulated diachronic research, because in this case the material can be clearly delimited; moreover such research can link up with philological traditions which, even if marginal, are well-established. Since the 1970s there has been a boom in studies carrying titles or subtitles of the type 'the reception of author X (in period Y or in culture Z)', but these studies hardly ever propose to bring out the historical determination of our own reception as a product of earlier receptions (which is impossible in any case if period Y does not continue into the present or if culture Z is not our own). The hermeneutic dimension is absent,30 and the bottles now labeled 'reception' contain old wines, which used to be called 'the Nachleben (or Fortleben) of X', 'the influence of X', 'the heritage of X', etc.31 Yet, as in the case of research into the horizon of expectation of the original audience, the focus on reception can lead to progress in comparison with conventional approaches because of attention now paid to the interaction of the work and the audience, in this case later audiences. |
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On the other hand, studies do exist in which the history of the reception of a work is indeed undertaken in order to clarify the researcher's own hermeneutic consciousness. Jauss himself provided a 'paradigm' (as he called it) in an article on Goethe's Iphigenie, first published in 1973.32 The paradigm is not one of literary history, but of interpretation: Jauss speaks of a rezeptionsgeschichtliche Deutung and a rezeptionsästhetische Interpretation (738; cf. 70407). Reception is involved in two ways: as the reception of the Iphigenie and as the reception by the Iphigenie, viz. of Racine's Iphigénie, the work which according to Jauss posed the question to which Goethe's play was the answer. The original 'horizon of question and answer' (707) is linked to our own questions and answers by the history of the reception of the play (70506). Thus the two aspects of reception are combined, but the combination is perhaps not as easy as it seems. Jauss's discussion of the history of the reception of Goethe's play is marked by a |
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30 Note how Gadamer (1986) 30506 (28485) emphasized that he did not plead for Wirkungsgeschichte as a discipline, but as hermeneutic self-consciousness. Jauss, however, lists examples of the 'rezeptionsgeschichtliche Methode' (183 with n. 91); cf. also Jauss (1975) 32627. |
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31 On this tradition see Stückrath (1979), esp. 132, n. 22 on the change in terminology. Examples concerning classical authors are given by Barner (1977) 51415 and P.L. Schmidt (1985) 76, n. 27. The new history of Latin literature by von Albrecht (1992) systematically lists such studies in separate sections on "Fortwirken" (not "Rezeption"!); cf. e.g. at 581, n. 4 the titles listed for Horace. |
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32 This article was incorporated in Jauss (1982) 70452; the characterization as a 'paradigm' occurs in the "Nachwort" at 738, 742 and elsewhere. Henceforward, bracketed page-numbers in my main text will refer to Jauss (1982). |
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