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    164 Haxs Rover Jauss perience Critical Introduction (1975):53-64 LITERARY HISTORY AS A CHALLENGE TO LITERARY THEORY v Inthe question thus posed, I sce the challenge to lt erary studies of taking up once again the problem of lixerary history, which was left unresolved in the dispute between Marxist and Formalise meth ‘ods. My attempt ro bridge the gap between litera ture and history, between historical and aesthetic approaches, begins at the point at which both schools stop. Their methods conceive the literary fact within the closed circle of an aesthetics of pro duction and of representation, In doing so, they de. Prive literature of a dimension that inalienably belongs to its aesthetic character as well as to its so Literary 165 necessary retelling of literary history is clearly set ‘out by the aesthetics of reception. The step from the history of the reception of the individual work to the history of lteracure has to lead to seeing and representing the historical sequence of works as the coherenc they determine and clarf of litera ture, to the extene that itis meaningful for us, as the Prehistory ofits present experience From this premise, the question a8 t0 how lier logically grounded and written anew will be addressed in the following VI Thesis 1. A renewal of literary history demands the removal of the prejudices of historical objectivism and the gre Al aesthetics of production and representas The historicity of literature nding of the traditio reception and influen FestS not on an organization of “iterary facts” that is established pose festum, burt rather on the preved: of the literary work by its re ing experien R.G. Contincwoon’s postulate, posed in his er "que of the prevailing idcology of objectivity in his nty-—"History is nothing bue the re-enactment of past thought in the historian’s mind”*—is even more valid for literary history. For the py ‘ew of history as the “objective” description of a seties of events in an isolated past negleets the arts as the specific historicity of literature. A literary work is not an stands by itself and that offers the same view 0 each reader in each period. It is not a monument Correspondingly, Welkee Benjamin or itis nota question of representing the written work in relation to their ne but of ringing to eepresenttion the time that knows them=—that ur time=in the ime when they ariinated. Thus tera orgs rnonot history and the eask of hnerary history Isto make this—and notte make waiten srs the rte al i tory” ge Frankfurt a.My 1966) 456 Au See Benpama [eds The Ides of Hatory (New ¥ 28. TA fre 1am following A. Niinin Platoniom of philongical met in the melee substance of literary work and tna tink leas point of view ofthe reader: "For the work of arti i eventiul character af a work of at with that of his which we ved acon uh without puting h an apply seein 7 hone Introduction, ps $4. This view of the dialogs! no ey see ob ar fund u Mal raion of lerary aesthetics which sl nl vo which Tam expecially indebeed ack tos fama sentence Valery ‘i crm th hie Een dis, 11" Nevsnmolentary. no tlic examination of pute should ain to give 9 esr of the po hare he sell, ea the lens ctl emer derstand i tl raced the elaine hack to iets Knosedge whens the Ginette Ihe ment af a historical aetion as i cam be rec ructee, and by she necessary and secondary uences oth historical contest iy Dich a hterary work appea facta inde bbserver. Percerul bec iee works and who recognizes vidualty in comparision with these and works thar be already knows here are readers who again appropriate the pi rier authors who want to imitate outdo, oF eit. The voherence of lit ture ay an event is marily iediated in che horizon of expectations of he literary experience of contemporary and later ers, crities, and authors, Whether itis possible comprehend and represent the history of hte Vil Thesis 2. The analysis of the raty experience of eader avoids che threatening pitfall uf pyyehok ogy i de 1 work within the ebjectiiable system of expecta ries the reception and the influence « tons that arises for each work in the historical me iment of ts appearance, from a preunderstanding fof the genre, from the form and themes of already familiar works, and from the opposition between poetic and practical hing Note alk J. Stotoste "Das Problem er Litcatunge ‘anizes lother idable who ~if ast pri 8 of ible eee a wide ddoubss whe can app San produ René Wellek in particular dlirects. such aed he literary theory of I. A. Richards lective stare of consciousness, as Jan Mukarossky assumes the effect a work of are to be, in be determined by empirical means.” Roman nvcmusess” BY 2 “collective ideology” in he dheinuence ofa particular work on cerein pls never been thought of before—literary data that alow one © ascertain 2 specific disposition of the audience for each work (a disposition that peccedes the psychological reaction as well as che subjective dual reader), As in the the fist literary ex Perience of a previously unknown work also de understanding of the indiv mands a “torcknowledge which isan element ofthe “UA iterary work, even when it appears to be new, absol po dience to a very specific kind of recep overt and covert signals, familiar + OF implicit allusions. It awakens Literary History.” Enos aeme Congres de lentes Tava Rene Walle, leon gue de Prague (1936). 179 [A fost, Lpet93, cited by Welle i996 pp. a9 fe [Au Co aok, Lem farang Stagare, 1987), p56 vind Urteh. who eles here ta Hansel Even memories of that which was already ready brings the reader to 4 specific emotional atitude, and with ity beginning arouses expectations for the “Mm and ent course of the reading according to specific rules of the gente or type of text. The psychie provess in the eveprion of a texts, in the primary horizon of aes. thetic experience, by no means only an arbiteary se ries of merely subjective impressions, but rather the "arrying out of specific instructions in a process of lirected perception, which can be comprehended d tig gnals, and which also can he deseribed by according t0 its constivutive motivations ering extual linguistics, If along with W.D. Stempel the initial horizon of expectations of 4 {ext as paradigmatic isotopy, which iy transposed into an immanent syntagmatic horizon of expecta ons to the extent thar the utterance grows, then on becomes describable in the itself between the development and the of a system." A corresponding process of the cor ‘inuous establishing and altering of horizons also sletermines the relationship of the individual text to the succession of texts that forms the genre. The new text evokes for the reader listener) the horizon tf expectations and rules familiar from earlier texte, which are then varied, corrected, altered, or even oerection deter just reproduced. Variation an mine the scope, whereas alteration and reproduc tion determine the borders of a gence structure The interprecative reception of a text always presup Doses the context of experience of aesthetic percep. tion: the question of the subjectivity of the inter pretation and of the taste of different readers or levels of readers can be asked meaningfully only when one has frst clarified which transsubjective horizon of understanding conditions the influence oF the text The ideal cases ofthe objective capability of such liverary-historical frames of reference are works Wolf Dicer Stempel, “Pour une description des genres ites” in Actes die Nile comers iernationl iuistyve Romane (Bucharest, 1968), ther a Be ie sur Textlnguiste, ed. W, D. Strnpel {Munich 2}, TAU, "Here U can refer to ony stad, “The Aieeal Literature,” Chapter, Reception. (A wd amt Aesthetic of 168 Hays Rowerr Javss that evoke the reader’ horizon of expectations, formed by a convention of genre, style, or form, only in order to destroy it step hy step-—which by ‘no means serves a critical purpose only, but can it Thus Cer ‘antes allows the horizon of expectations of the fa Norite old rales of knighthood 10 arise out of the eading of Don Quixote, which the adventure of hi Thus Diderot, Fe, evakes the f the popula last knight then seriously parodies. at the beginning of Jacques le horizon of expectations novelistic of the reader to the narrator} along with the tAr torelian) convention of the romanesque fable and the providence unique toi, so that he ea then p and Nocarively oppose to the promised. journey love-novel a completely unromanesque histoire": the bizarre reality and moral casuistry the enclosed stories in which the t Sinually denies the mendacious cha fiction." Thus Nerval in the ¢ bines, and mixes a quintessence of well-known to the horizon of expectations of a mythical metamorphosis of the acter of poetic world only in order to signify his renunciation of romantic poetry. The identifications and relation ships of the mythie stare that are familiar or dis closable 10 the reader dissolve into an unknown to the same degree as the attempted private myth of the lyrical “I” fils, the law of sufficient information is broken, and the obscurity that has hecome ex pressive itself gains a There is also the possibility of objecttying the horizon of expectations in works that are histor sally less sharply delineated. For the specific dispo work thar the author an. rence can also be arrived at through three wed factors: frst through fami Ficipates from the ven if explicit signals are lacking, he interpretation of H. J. Neuschafe Sin der Parade tn Do Ouote Stats Heidelberg, 193). [A Acconing to the interpretation of Rance Wenn t Wirktichkert on Tristan Sony nd J rie and Caschih hhonen Kote Mu he interpretation ler Theratur und der he 1968), e—p. np 89 fe A of Kael Hei Seer le Nevtls “Chimires der Literati and der schoncn Sand yi. Tau iar norms or the immanent poetics of the enre; gg ond; through the implicit relationships to amy works of the literay-historial surroundings sat thitd, through the opposition between fiction set reality, ber practical fun silable to ther. reen the poetic and th tion of language, which is always Mective reader during the reading as a possibiiy comparison. The third factor includes the poss ity thatthe reader of a new work can perccie 4 within the natrower horizon of literary expec {ions, as ell 28 within the wider horizon of expen ence of life. 1 shall return to this horizonal sine 1d ity ability to be objectfed by means of hy sion of the relationship between literature and Ine] praxis (see XI Vil Thesis. Reconstructed in this way, the horizon of ns of a work allows one to detcemine ig expec artistic character by the kind and the degree of ia influence on a presupposed audience. H one charac as aesthetic dista ie the disparity between 'ven horizon of expectations and the appear hose reception can tesultin a ‘change of horizons” through negation of famultae experiences or through raising newly articulated experiences to the level af consciousness, then ths resthetic distance can he objectified historically along the spectrum of th tion oF shock, scattered approval, gradual or be. lated understand THE Way in which a literary work, at the historical ‘moment of its appearance, satisfies, surpasses, di ‘ppoints, or retutes the expectations of its fist sudience obviously provides a ritcrion for the de The distance between the horizon of expectations and the work, fermination of its aesthetic vale between the familiarity of previous aesthetic exper ence and the “horizonal change™'” demanded hy the reeeprion of che new work, determines the arti tic character of a literary work, according to ait aes thettes of reception: to the degree that this distance Hussein eo abrnng, ppg fe LA Kept see Buch, Lerten nnd B dus re sale questo work ashe ree Lit known experience is demanded of the receiving watumnes, the cheer the work cones ihe Jaltungskuvst|. This latter work can be character (uction of the familiarly beautiful; confirms produ eitiments;_ sanctions wishful notions. Sols’ them im an edifying manner a5 predecded work is the measured by the asthe distance with which opposes the expectaions ofits fe hevome seltevident and has tse entered ino henceforth familie expectation. The clase chas ater of the so-called masterworks especialy be nul form thar hay become self-evident and ther Here 1 am incorporating results of the discussion of ‘isch" asa borderine phenomenon wf the seen which rook place daring the shied colloquium of there ap “Poktik und Hermeneutik (now sn the tine Pie nicht mehr schinen Kinste-—Growaphing en, ed H.R. Jas (Munich 1968) For the “culinary” approach, which presupposes mere tnteraomene art, she same thing holds te tor kieek Dumel, shat hete the “demands ofthe soncumers ane “U" (Ps Bein that “the fulfil expecta ton becomes the norm ofthe product” {Wolfgang bev, that “its work, without having or solving « prebleey eens the appearance of solution th problem i Inka, pp. eg 63. [Au ot this, se Boris Tomashevsky, in re. Textes des formubstes masses 0-1 Todoron (Pans, 196§),p. 406,00 sy1-"The appene ™ nus always equals a literary revolution which lethrones the dominant ay oveses subordinated unl the Asal the cpigon Xs sereonpeal and traditional. Thin the epoones History as.a Challenge to Literary Theory 169 Seemingly unquestionable “erernal meaning” bring them, according to an aesthetics of reception, dan Berously close to he irresistibly convincing and en. iovable “culinary” art, so that it requires a special effort co read them “against the grain” of the accu: tomed experience 10 catch sight of their artistic character once again {sce section X The relationship berween literature and audience includes mote chan the facts that eveey work ha its ‘own specific historically and sociologically deter minable audience, hat every writer is dependent on and ideology of his andience, and that literary success presipposes a book "which expresses what the group expects, a book which Presents the group with its own image.” This ab. the milieu, view leetivist determination of literary success according {0 the congruence of the work's intention with the expectations of social group always leads literary sociology into a dilemma whenever later or ongo’ ing influence isto be explained. Thus R. Escarpit wants to presuppose a “collective basis in space or time” for the “illusion of the lasting quality” of \writer, which in the ease of Molire leads to an as tonishing prognosis: "Molire is still young for the Frenchman of the twentieth century because his world still lives, and a sphere of cultute, views, and language still hinds us to him. .., But the sphere becomes ever smaller, and Molire will age and die when the things which our culture still has in come ‘mon with the France of Moliére die” ip. 11>),-As Moliéte had only mirrored the “mores of hes time and had only remained suecessful through this sup Posed intention! Where the congruence between work and social group does not exist, or no longer exists, as for example with the reception of a work in a foreign language, Escarpitis able to help hitm self by inserting a “myth” in b ween; “myths that are invented by a later world for which the reality that they substitute for has become alien” ip. r11 As if all reception beyond the first, sovially deer. mined audience for a work were only a “distorted echo, nor itself have its objective priori once again inthe only a result of “subjective myths,” and did recvived work as the limit and possibility of later tunderstanding! The sociology of literature docs not "R. Fscarpt, Das Buch wd der bese: Enron emer Lit ratrsociologe (Cologne and Opladen, ty6t; frst ox panded German edie of Svcilogt de a itorsbon Iaris. ys}. 16: (Aur) 170 Hans Ronen favs | objet diletclly enough when i deer- since Chateabiands Anata, Thema ons : nu ith Ae rt jet ested a amy specie aniene, but nave passions eal they ereted stave . expestations s0 completely char am audience can Both authore undersea hea the con ja stew horizon uf expectations has achieved more onal riot that went hevonn the expec donk fini | such honzonal change does he analysis of teary bee feo of his lees anh desons ve inflence achieved dnension of alerts hitory ving aes failed is denies, and pee a ry. which has since become world-famous, aps Iaughahle figure nf the cinkolded Chevies ieee Hf Beace his rend Fey's Fy today forgotten, takes om dignified tee at the ond te te a Although Flaubert’ novel brought with ita tral for crtichwn of the tng ces a fencing public morals, Madame Howry was at Enuny as well as Mh rr fintovershadoved hy Feydean's novel Furny wert the new school af rahi. aba cheyeenrech on succes thelikes of which Parishad not experienced which the soval ander ofthe Second Emer soe founded. The audience's horizon of expec KH, Rorer, King wd Nasal: Untersuchungen in 1857, bere only vaguely sketched in, which dd Tere nf apzhunderts Sulla Ro- not expect anything great fam the owed foe Boy rest a1 Heielberg, 196°), shows hit sey sess : val Huan af feudal weity andere eaty neprcsemed _theirnarrativeformisposed Flauberteforoninng, | inging discrepancy between “reality” and “eulogy passibtitg) attacked by Rarben dene willy with n hats hetween the historical constellation pass wked hy Bares dAurevilly w sorts ot ois nthe poetic respons ofthe ep parvo chat i story-telling machine could Heh Avethac hnght these apes fo ight m the >In “adam Roary par Gastae labere” Houde : fet) of poatemaking Wveaks inthe relatonhip fee s, letade od (Paris, ost pa Brit Schalk in his edition uf Auerbach eso Plosions ofa spe ail exc hy the ploy te \ ecard Weinrich, Fe eine Licrturghiste des uta an gate tha hea : cers” Morkar 21 November, yer anaenit arm sand loony ere ae Most happy sapyts my aime, Weal abs URS pp tobetry, ep pp sot and soo Hpk hesanpenentd the nennticsndltcramymtepect oh ve tothe navel has hoon poet an putt feo [A consid detail me of veau te his ish hing the of ¥ the cial ect tof h for ld Bl the tof ith old the ‘a he Jona nol could ake find mconporated ie Fe sss of a svish level of society? and could Ay Mudume Bovary, however, become wide hen a fests was understood and appreciate! oy 9 earn the novel by only a small ei the wiense of novel-readers that was formed by ue same © sanctinn the new canon of expectation this canon made Feydeau's weakniesses-—his flowers sole, his modish elfcets, his Ivricab-contessional liches able, and allowed Furry to fade IX k was erated discover how the vontemporan reader could have viewed and understood the work This approach correets the montly unrecognised For th other contemporary verdicts sce H.R, fous, “Pre biden Fassungen von Huber Bdge tientale” Heidelberger Jabrbitcher te {this sc the excellent analysis hy the contemporary Sif Montegur (ace note 25 above, wh captor iy hy the dresmrowurld and the figures tn Fonda Setween the Bourse and the Roulevand ome nee f.32¥|shatncc a “akeolpoeagues enone ee c adventures of vestenday ind ther eae sry of the materia” by which Mon andy the ingredients ef the “cine 38 anetimonious admicatton, ¥ furniture, wallyaper, dees ee ‘ry History as.a Challenge to Literary Theory hitterence between the firmer and the « standing of a works it history of is reception, which ns: andl 4¢ thereby call int ble for the understanding of literature Known, his intent undec ‘o sources and models only indirectly accessibh crly"—that is, “from its intention an he understood can best be answered if one fort rounds ic against those audience tok of the Roman de Remart logue testfes—that his listeners know ro pics (chansons de bh auc}, and that th unprecedented war berween the two barons, Re narcand Ysengrin,” w thing already known. The w on in the sourse of the narrative. From this horizonal change ‘one can probably: al Examples ofthis method, which not only follow the on fame, and influence of a writer throweh has but alo examine the historical conditions ata eens in understanding him are rare. The fy ving shah one: G.F. Kory Dickens and Fe Red Princeton, 1955): A. Nisin, Les Oh Pari 19 Konsird, Corneil, Racine: E. Lament “Sap ti ia chichte Fichendorts in. Deutschland fore ir Richard Alewys wl. H. Snaee Wiese (Cologne and Graz, v9, The een Problem ofthe step tram she tllucnes ‘of work was indicated most sharply by Ee Voted reall i 1941 in bis study “Die Prablentatk er Rese n von Nerudas Werk" imine in senna th the question of the changes ithe wotk cha ae realised Its successive aesthetic percep tits. A cdiates bath post question as a pla metaphysics the ap parently sel-evident claims that inthe liters ney is indispens the wlstane past. When the author of a work ie une that the author ex: emporary 1ow. The creator ofthe oldest branches ‘example, asstumes—a5 HANs Ronexr Jauss ching far beyond France, of this rapidly famous work that for the first time took a position opposed to all the long-reigning heroic and courtly poetry. Philological research long misunderstood. the ‘originally satiric intention of the medieval Reineke Fuchs and, along with it, the ironic-didactie mean ing of the analogy between animal and human na tures, because ever since Jacob Grimm it had re~ mained trapped within the romantic notion of pure nature poetry and naive animal tales. Thus, to give yet a second example of modernizing norms, one sould also rightly reproach French research into the epie since Bédier for living by the eriteria of Boileaw's pocties, and judging a nonclassical literature by the norms of simplicity probability, and still others." The philological-critical method is ob viously nor prorected by its historical objcctivi from the interpreter who, supposedly bracketi himself, nonetheless raises his own aesthetic pre ‘conceptions to an unacknowledged non flectively modernizes the m harmony of part and whe aning of the past text Whoever believes that the “rimelessy true” mean: ing ofa literary work must immediately, and simply through one’s mere absorption in the text, disclose elf to the interpreter as if he had a standpoint of history and beyond all “errors” of his predecessors and of the historical reception—who- ever believes this “conceals the involvement of the historical consciousness itself inthe history o influ ence." He denies “those presuppositions—certanly not arbitrary but rather fundamental—that govern his own understanding,” and can only feign an ob. jetivity “that in truth depends upon the legitimacy ‘of the questions asked. In Truth and Method Hans-Georg Gadamer, whose critique of historical objectivism Tam as suming, here, described the principle of the history of influence, which seeks to present the reality of history in understanding itself," as an application of the logic of question and answer to the historical tradition. Ina continuation of Collingwood’s thesis See H.R. Juuss, Untersuchungen zur mittelaertichon Therdichtung (Tabingea, 1950) esp. chop. IVA and Di TAs, A. Vinaver, “A la recherche dune postique médivale Cahiers de civilisation médiévale 20939), tests (As Gadamer, Wahrheit wad Methode, pp. 28, 285; Eng, p68 Tau Tid, p84; Eng p Au See Gadamer. [El gment of the present would favor a canon of works that correspond to modern taste, but would tnjustly evaluate all other works only because thie function in their time is no longer evident. And the history of influence itself, as instructive as it might be, ame objections as ¢ authority of the author's contemporaries." i a8 “authority open to the Wellek’s conclusion—that chere is no possibility of avoiding our own judgment; one must only make this judgment as objective as possible in that one docs what every scholar does, namely, “isolate the aporia, but rathera relapse into objectivism. The “verdict of the-ages" object” —is no solution to d fon a literary work is more than metely “the accu mulated judgment of other readers, critic, viewer and even professors";* it is the successive unfold. ing ofthe potential for meaning that is embedded in a work and actualized in the stages ofits historical reception as it discloses itself to understanding iudgment, so long as this faculty achieves in a con trolled fashion the “fusion of horizons” in the en counter with the tradition, Mid. p. 352 Eng, p. 333. [Au ‘hid. p. 2895 Eng p75. [At] “ibid p. 586% Eng, ps 339 (Au "Wellck, 1956, peta: tid, "The Concepr of Evol tion in Literary History,” Concepts of Crictom (New Haven, 1963) PP. 17-20. Au Ii. p19. (At) "thid l, Tid us. dee hese vith # intluence nonetheless history of in here Gadamer would lke to elev aches its limit ate the concept of the classical co the status of prototype tor all his trical mechatton of pase with present. His defin dicon. 1 clasieal is “what says something to the presents if 1 were actually said wo ite" then fo theclasca ext one would not fs seck the ues tion to which it gives an answer. Doesn't the baer cal, which “signifies itself and interprets sel ond hos scribe the result of what I ealled the nal chy the unquestioned, self ster of the so-called “masterwork, ‘onceals its original negativity within the re rospective horizon of an exemplary tradition, and which necessitates our regaining the of questa right horizon ina" Once again in the face of the con. firmed classicism? Even with the classical work, the receiving consciousness isnot relieved of the eack of recognizing the “tensional relationship between the text and the present."** The concept ofthe classical imerprets ise, taken over from Hegel, must lead to a re crsal of the historical relationship of question and answer," and contradiets the prin ciple of the history of influence that understanding ly a reproductive, but always produc five actude as well.” This contradietion is evidently conditioned by Gadamer’s holding that fast to a concept of classical at i nor capable of serving as a pen ral founda aesthetics of reception beyond the pe: ‘tod ofits origination, namely, that of humanism. I bs the concept of mimesis, understood as tt und Methode,p. 274: Eng. p.257.(Au « chapter Die Log and. Annwore™ ibe Bp. 51605. Eng 405 see my “History of Art and Praga Chapter 2 f Toward an Aeathetis of Revo Fg. ps 265, JA) » History asa Challenge to Literary Theory 173 as Gadamer demonstrates in his ontological explanation of the experience of art: “What one ac twally experiences in a work of art and what one is directed toward is rather how true itis, that in: to what extent one knows and rec es something and oneself."*" This concept of art can be validated for the humanist period of art, bur not for ite ceding medieval period and noe at all pre seeding period of our modernity, in which the aes thetics of mimesis has fost its obligatory character along with the substantalist metaphysics ("know edge of essence") that founded it. The epistemolori cance of art does nat, however, ome to-an end with this period-change, evident that are was in-no cal signifi whence it hecomes ay bound to the class cal funetion of re isvition."* The work of art can also mediate knowledge that does not ft into the Platonic schema if it anticipates paths of future ex Perience, imagines as-yer-untested mode ception and behavio newly posed questions." this vie Is of per Its precisely concerning tual significance and productive function in the process of experience that the history of the in fluence of literature is abbr. eviated when one gathers the mediation of past art and the present under the concept of the classical. 1 Hf according to Gadamer, the clas elf is supposed to achieve the over coming of historical distance through its constant ‘mediation, it must, as a perspective of the hyposea tired tradition, displace the We insight that classical are the time of its production did not yet appear ‘lassical”: rather, it could open up new waye of seeing things and’ pr only in eform new experiences that historical distance—in the recognition what is now familiar—give rise that a timeless truth of 0 the appearance expresses itself in the work The influence of even the great literary works ‘of the past can be compared neither with » self. ating event nor with an emanation: the tradi Ii p. 109; En p See bid, pov “This also fo Aw.) Ens p. 193. [Au lows from Formalist aesthetics and ope theory of "deautomatra sf Victor Enichs summary, Russa Formalin As the ‘twisted, deliberately impeded form incr al obstacles beeween the peracvin vy and the ubject. cially from Viktor Shilo ceived, she chain of habitual sous atic responses i broken: thus, we ve able to see things instead of merely reesgmeneg Tau 174 HANs Ronear Jauss tion ot art poses 2 dialogical relation ship of the present to the past, according to which the past work can answer and "say something” to tus only when the present observer has posed the question that draws it back out of its seclusion, When in Truth and Method, understanding is con eeived-—analogous to Heidegger’ “event of being’ Seinsgescheben}—as "the placing of oneselt within 1 process of tradition in which past and present ment which hes in understanding” must he short. changed, This productive function of progressive sanding, which necessarily also includes icizing the tradition and forgetting ity shall ithe following sections establish basis tor the project ‘of a literary history according to an aesthetics of re ception. This project must consider the historicity of literature in a threefold manner: diaeheunically n the interrelationships of the reception of literary works (see X), synchronically in the frame of refer, ence of liter ure of the same moment, as well as i the sequence of such frames (see Xt}, and nally in the relationship of che immanent literary develop. iment to the general process of history (sce NI Xx Thesis 5. The theory of the aesthetics of reception not only allows one to conceive the meaning and form of a literary work in the historical unfolding of lts understanding. I also demands that one insert the individual work into is “literary series” to ree ‘ognize its historical position and significance in the context of the experience of literature, In the step. from a history of the reception of works tan event ful history of literature, the latter manitests itself a5. 2 proces in which the passive reception son the solve formal and moral problems left behind by the last work, and presen ew problems in turn, part of authors, Pat How can the individual work, which positivistic literary history determined in a chronological series and thereby reduced to the status of a “fact,” be bough back into its his eal sequential relation ship and thereby once again he understood as an En 8. [An] vent”? The theory of the Formalist schoo, aeeady mentioned, would solve this problem wig its principle of “literary evolution,” according th which the new w arises against the backgrou of preg or competing works reaches the “high nt” of a literary period as a successfl for *saiickly reproduced and thereby increasingly sume matized unt nally when the next form has broly through, the ner vegetates on 28 used-up peng in the quotidian sphere of literature. Ifone weresy analyze and describe a literary period according wp this progeam—which to date has hardly been pag into use'*—one could expecta representation thay would in various respects he superior to that of the conventional literary history, Instead of the works standing in closed series, themselves standing ong after another and unconnected, at best framed by a sketch of general history sof the works of icular school, or ong kind of style, as well as the series of various genres the Formalist method would relate the seties tp fone another and discover the evolutionary alter. rating relationship of functions and forms.® The works that thereby stand out from, correspond to, ‘or replace one another would appear as moments of author, a p 4 process that no longer needs to be construed 45 tending toward some end point, since as the di lectical self-production of mew forms it requires no telology. Scen inthis way, the autonomous dy ics of literary evolution would wermore elim rae the dilemma of the criteria of selection: the cr terion here is the work as a new form in the literary series, and not the self-reproduction of worn-out forms, artistic devices, and genres, which pass into the background until ata new moment in the evolu. tion they are made “perceptible” once again, Fé nally, in the Formalise project of a literary history that understands itself as “evolution” and--com- trary to the usual sense ofthis term-—excludes any In the 1927 article, “Uber iterarsche Evolution.” by Jur Tymjanov {in Die lrerarischen Kunstitel add Evolution i der Literatur. pp. 39~60). this program is ‘most pregnantly presented it was oniy pasty fa filed —as fui Scrteder informed mein dhe teeasnent ‘of problems of structural change nthe history testy gente, as for example inthe volume Russkapa proce Voprosy postiki 8 (Leningrad, 1936, or J. Tyojanoy De Ode als hetorsche Gattung” (igs), Tent fer rassischen Formtalstom I, ej. Stricr (Atunich 973). IA] J. Tynjanoy, “Uber fterassthe Evolucion. bist, fick lite alre thee litee fier and spor thro the that 1 less the char perc he vol, ay 2 with round high roken put that of the works | | Literary History al character: the “evolutionary” significance snd oa literary phenomenon presip Characteristics of a literary. phenomenon presup pase in nas the decisive feature, just as k of art perceived against the background of other works of at. The Formal theory of “literary ev Ot the most signifi ses also occur within a system in the the attempted functional are to be held onto, even ifthe one-sided canoniza ion of change requires a correction, Criticism has already divplayed the weaknesses of the Formalie ition; mere opposition ar acsthett variation docs not suffice to explain the growth of lireratuce: the question of the direction of chante of literary forms remains unanswerable: innovation and the connection between literary evolution and social change does not vanish from the face of the ough its mere negation," My thesis XU re he lase question; the problematic of the Femaining questions demands that the descriptive literary theory of the Form ists be opened up, through an aesthetics of reception, to the dimes sion of historical experience that must also include the historical standpoint of the present observer that che literary historian, solution as a cease le between the new and the old, or as ation of the canonization and automatiea, we historical character of lit to the one-dimensional actuality of its limits historical understanding to their Peteeption, The alterations im the literary series nonetheless only become a histarieal sequence when the opposition of the old and new form also allows ‘me to revounize their specific mediation, This me A work of art will appear asa positive value when i twill Jan, Mukatovsty, sted hy fe Wollks raessppea% 491 [Au Se V. Fetch, Rustam Formation. po. 254-595 R. Wel beh 963, pp a8 fy and I Serteter: tows dey we matsten, i lntecdaction, §. [Aut] to Literary Theory 175 dation, which include tion of work and recipient éritic, new producer) as well as that of ‘at and suecessive reception, cin he methou! paste ‘cally grasped in the formal and substantial 18 the horizon of the ‘solutions’ which ace possible alter i leaves behind.” problem “that each work of art poses and The mere description of the al and the new artistic devices of a work does not necessarily lead to this problem; nos therefore, back c its function in the historical se Fies, To determine this, that is, to recognize the problem left behind to which the new work in the historical series isthe answer, the interpreter runt bring his own experience into play, since the past horizon of old and new forms, problems and sete tions, is only recognizable in its further mediovon within the present horizon of the received work Literary history as” erary evolution” presuppuses the historical process of aesthetic reception andl Production up to the observer's present as the con. dition for the mediation ofall formal oppositions oF dilferential qualities” |~ Differensqualtaten Founding “literary evolution” on an aesthetics of reception thus not only recurns its last direction in sofar as the standpoint of the literary historian be comes the vanishing point—but not the goalt of the process. If alo opens 0 view the temporal ‘depths of iteraty experience, in that it allows une to ize the variable distance between the actual and the virtual significance of a literary work. This means that th istic character of a work, whose semantic potential Formalism reduces to innovation 88 the single criterion of value, must in no way al ways be immediately perceptible within the horizon ofits first appearance, let alone that it could then also already be exhausted in the pure opposition between the old and the new form. The distance ben ‘veen the actual fies perception of a work and ite Virtual significance, oF, put another way, the resis tance that the new work poses Hans Blumenberg in note 18), 6 According to V. Erich, Russian For ‘oncept meane thee things tthe level of he representation of reality stood forthe “divengcave: tom she tik und Hermeneatie 5 (we aliom, aise mation. On the level of language ie meant 9 Dareare feom current ligase sage. Finally 176 Hans Rosekr Jauss was uneypected and unusable within the first hurt unexpe u Provess of reception to gather in that which ance of the work remains long unrecognized wnt bf a newer form, reaches the horizon that now for he frse ime allows one to find acess tothe under nding of the misunderstood older form. Thus the hscure Iyties of Mallarmé and his sehoal prepared the ground for the return ew baroque poctry. long Ticular for the philological reinterpretation and Botten Iterarure, These inchide the swvealled “re ond that fnerary tradition can not That is, a hteraty pase can return only sehen a ne eveption draws it back into the preven ization ofthe Titeray past." How the eltig ship of pectic theory to aesthetically produce praxis s represented in this hight the interaction between production form exhausted hy these remarks, Hex all luserate the dimension ing which a diachronic view of literature lead whgn would no longer be satisfied co consider a chron cal appearance of literature XI pecasion for overcoming the dahroni per spective—previously the only one practiced iy 88 Well, If the perspective uf the history of reception always bumps up against the il connections between the underseanding of new works and when shanges in aesthetic attitudes are considered, ie must also be possible t take a synchronic ene the heterogeneous inultiphicity of eontemporinenes structures, and thereby to discover an overarching further cross-seetions diachronically hetore ond Fer were so arranged as tw atticulate Instorical He change in hterary structures in ts epuch-mahing SiwortisD Kracauer bas most decisively question lation luctive ites of ption wre ad Here "into st the nding red, ange ical hing ped king sed he Literary History as 4 Challenge to Literary Theory xp siography. His Time and History™*' disputes eral History" to rend he claim of °Ge mogerte sistent in each historical moment fl process, consistent in each historical nn This underscinding of history still sanding undee legel’s concept of the “objective the influence of H cemeemporancously is equaly informed by ei nificance of this moment, and it thereby conceate pposes that everythiny supposes. tha at happens the actval noncontemporaneity of the contempo. ancous.” For the multiplicity of events of one his ical monent, which the universal historian be lewes can he understood as exponents of a unified content, ae de facto moments of entirely different fimecurves, conditioned by the laws of their “spe sia! history,""* ay becomes immediately evident in . polities, and so forth: “The shaped times of the diverse areas overshadow the uniform flow of ume. Any historical period must heretore he imagined as a mixture of events which emerge at diflerer nts of their own time leis nor in question here whether this state of af sis presupposes a primary inconsistency 10 his oy, s0 shat the consistency of general history ah ways only arises retrospectively rom the unifying ewpoine and representation of the historian, or whether the radical doubt concerning “historical reason.” which Kracauer extends from the pl ist (Rew York, 1969 chap the Rublle of Tine,” pe rave. : actly assame that bur knurled of the monn at which amevent emerge tom he fa ‘il felp us to account tor ts appearances The the aluelen tact. Avcordinely. all event a take lace ata given moment are suppunaduaoee tren nd there for reason hound pe with that i. Hi acvilla 1 48}. and Ge Kubler Hi Things New Ha Kraciter Histor ps4 and the particular in history, infact proves that uni versal history is philosophically illegitimate today For the sphere that Kracauer insights into the “coexistence of the contemporaneous. and non-contemporaneos, ar from leading historical knowledge into an apo fia, rather make apparent the necessity and poser bility of discovering the historical dimension of li «rary phenomena in synehronic cross-sections. For it follows from these insights thatthe chronological fiction of the moment that intorms all contempor Faneous phenomena corresponds as litle ta the hy, tricity of literature as does the morphological fe tion of a homogenous lite series, in which all Phenomena in their sequential order only follow ‘vmanent laws. The purely diachronie perspective, however conclusively it might explain changes in for example, the histories of genres according to the immanent logie of innovation and automatization, Problem and solution, nonetheless only arrives. at he properly historical dimension when it breaks through the morphological canon, to confront the work that is important in historical influence with the historically worn-out, conventional warks of the gente, and at the same time does not ignore its rel Sionship to the literary miliew in which it had to make its way alongside works of other genres The histoticity of literature comes to light at the Intersections of diachrony and synchrony. Thus it literary horizon of a specific historical moment comprehensible. as that synchronic system in relation to which litera ture that appears contemporaneously could be re ceived diachra ically in felations of noncontempo: raneity, and the work could he received as carrenter not, a modi purdated, or perennial, as. prc mente. p. x49, The formula of “the rhe liferent” with which F Senge ntigen Literaturgeschicheschreihun omparative interpretation ot bode i i Tn 1960 Roman Jakobsen als) made dis clam in ture that ow consticutes chap. t4. “Linguistic righ ok, Essa ue lngustqne go hat p reams ape theta her as work ity ofa com unl antieipanons that establishes theie signi Since each sencheuitic system must contain i pas S future as inseparable struct ments. the synch section of the litera production of 9 historical ponnt in tine nevessari cally belore and alter. Analogous to the history of canonized genres: mods of expression, kinds stvleyand rhetorical figures; contrasted with this at Blumenberg has postulated for the histo periods and, in particular, the socves losophy, aad grounding i¢ in his historical logic of vestion and ansiver: a “totmal system af the ex ‘isiges not only che Herat pruxhation ofa given pe ta But also that part ofthe trary wade ahh has remained alive how tesscianed ithe posed in question... Historia peatin, exactly hike the histor ‘oF linge, ii wants beers comprehensive eh

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