Reader-Response Theory and Reception Aesthetics
독자반응비평과 수용미학
A major literary hermeneutics paradigm showing that literary meaning is realized dynamically through the interaction between text and reader, as readers fill indeterminacy blanks within shifting horizons of expectation.
| Field | Literature & Literary Theory · Aesthetics & Art Theory |
|---|---|
| Level of analysis | Micro · Individual |
| Paradigm | Hermeneutics Phenomenology |
| Key figures | 👤 Wolfgang Iser (볼프강 이저) 👤 Hans Robert Jauss (한스 로베르트 야우스) |
| Year | 1970 |
Key Claims
Wolfgang Iser and Hans Robert Jauss revolutionized literary theory by centering the reading process. Literary texts contain structured gaps and blanks of indeterminacy that mandate the reader’s active cognitive concretization. Jauss added that literature’s historical life is governed by dynamic shifts in the audience’s ‘horizon of expectations’.
Further Reading
- Iser, W. (1978). The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response. Johns Hopkins University Press.
- Jauss, H. R. (1982). Toward an Aesthetic of Reception. University of Minnesota Press.
Related theories 2개
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Theories pointing to this one 3개
A radical reader-response and legal hermeneutics theory positing that texts have no objective meaning independent of the culturally learned interpretive strategies shared by "interpretive communities".
A seminal post-structuralist literary essay arguing that a text is not a single line of theological meaning dictated by its author, but a multidimensional tissue of citations liberated by the reader.
A foundational philosophical hermeneutics treatise asserting that understanding is an ongoing historical dialogue where the interpreter's situated fore-meanings merge with the text in a "fusion of horizons".