Literary Translation

Introduction to Reception Aesthetics
Author(s): Peter Uwe Hohendahl and Marc Silberman

Source: New German Critique, No. 10 (Winter, 1977), pp. 29-63
Published by: Duke University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/487671
Accessed: 18-12-2017 09:58 UTC
REFERENCES
Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/487671?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents
You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms
Duke University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
New German Critique
This content downloaded from 94.125.228.99 on Mon, 18 Dec 2017 09:58:53 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Introduction to Reception Aesthetics
by Peter Uwe Hohendahl*
The judgment of history that will one day

become the last Judgment on an author and his
work, is already prejudiced with the judgment of
the first reader, and posterity will have to take
into consideration the public meaning which
contemporaries have attributed to the work.1
The study of literary reception is both an old and a new discipline: old insofar
as theoretical interest in the impact of literature began with a philosophically
oriented poetics established in classical times and has played an important role
since then in the European literary tradition; new insofar as only the last
decades have witnessed a critical discussion about the fundamental theoretical
questions of reception. While we shall examine reasons for this delay, let us f
emphasize that it is a simplification to speak of one discipline. The term "rec
tion" comprises a number of research areas, each with its own method
epistemological framework. Although overlapping is visible everywhere
theoretical integration has yet been achieved. Two reasons may be cited for t
first, there is the immense growth within the field of reader analysis; second,
great variation in methodological premises simply precludes any additive sum
tion of research results. An extensive analytical study would be necessary jus
clarify at which level the linguistic and the socio-historical or the phenome
logical and the materialist approaches could mutually interrelate. An introd
tory presentation can obviously not satisfy such demands. Our goal, therefor
a kind of "statement of accounts" which will critically outline the present st
of the discussion and at the same time reconstruct the historical background
its changing paradigms.
Any attempt to understand the hesitancy and even resistance to the study
reception among literary critics must first consider the methodological obsta
inherent within the dominant schools of literary criticism. Neither historici
nor textual criticism, or even Critical Theory (Adorno), could concede m
than a marginal position to the study of reception. Empirical investigations
* This article was first published as an introduction to Peter Uwe Hohendahl, ed., Sozia
geschichte und Wirkungsdsthetik: Dokumente zur empirischen und marxistischen Rez
tionsforschung (Frankfurt am Main, 1974). It appears here for the first time in English.
1. Pierre Bourdieu, Zur Soziologie der symbolischen Formen (Frankfurt am Main, 1
p. 102.
30 NEW GERMAN CRITIQUE
whether of a sociological or of a psychological nature, were accepted as usefu

preliminary studies (extrinsic approach) but their literary and aesthetic relevanc
was unanimously questioned, even if for very different reasons. Karl Robert
Mandelkow has rightly pointed out that in Germany the obstacles were espe-
cially great so that not even a historically grounded sociology of readers coul
develop, such as evolved in other Western European countries since the 19th
century.2 To name just one example, only recently have studies comparable to
Beljame's books appeared within Germanistics. Because of its fixation on the
genetic method, historicism can do no more than supplement traditional histor
cal writing oriented toward producer and text when encountering reception an
response processes. The history of impact is dissolved into an epic constructio
of cultural history: the ups and downs of popularity are seen as an index
reader competency vis-a-vis the absolute value of the text in question. The di
advantage of such reputation studies is that they do not question the relation
ship between text and concretization, which, of course, should be the ma
object of analysis. Reponse processes congeal into a series of facts whose van-
ishing point remains the autonomous text and not its actualization. We ca
easily recognize why. Actualization is blasphemy for historicism which aims a
an identification with a given historical period. Since historicism eliminates the
idea of totality and thus progress, history can only partially be reconstructed
namely from the middle of the past epoch. Hans Robert Jauss' critique of thi
view is convincing: "Ranke's solution for the inherited problem of the philoso
phy of history was purchased at the price of cutting the thread between the pa
and the present of history, i.e., between the epoch 'as it actually was' and 'tha
which evolved from it'."3 Walter Benjamin's Theses on the Philosophy
History, which Jauss cites, express it even more clearly: "To articulate the pa
historically..,. means to seize hold of a memory as it flashes up at a moment
danger. Historical materialism wishes to retain that image of the past which
unexpectedly appears to man singled out by history at a moment of danger...
In every era the attempt must be made to wrest tradition away from a conform
ism that is about to overpower it."4
2. Karl Robert Mandelkow, "Probleme der Wirkungsgeschichte," Jabrbucb fiir Internati

nale Germanistik, 2:1 (1970), 71-84.
3. Hans Robert Jauss, Literaturgescbicbte als Provokation der Literaturwissenschaft (Frank-
furt am Main, 1970), p. 151. The second part (chs. V-XII) of the title essay of this book has
been published in English as "Literary History as a Challenge to Literary Theory," New
Literary History, 2:1 (Autumn 1970), 7-37.
4. Walter Benjamin, "Theses on the Philosophy of History," Illuminations (New York,
1968), p. 257.
RECEPTION AESTHETICS 31
The untouchable postulate of historicism that the present can be e

from historical construction, i.e., the principle of forgetting one's ow
devalues reception study because the communicative processes reg
once more regarded as past and not brought into relation with t
Finally, the epicizing tendency inherent in historicism also controls t
of impact. The latter can be experienced as a history of suffering of
their works, whereas it should be used as a critical instrument "to br
against the grain."5
If the study of reception remains an embarrassment for historicism
at least integrate it by neutralizing its methodological implications,
textual criticism, the older phenomenological school and Critical
rejection of reception studies reflects an inherent necessity. The
toward impact studies, which Adorno expressed several times, is clo
to his critique of a type of sociology of art which reduces the social as
work of art to the recording of artistic appreciations. Adorno rightly
this form of sociologizing which reifies as psychological reaction th
inherent in the work of art and can only be derived from it. In his Th
Sociology of Art, directed primarily against Alphons Silbermann and
Adorno justifies his reservations about impact studies. In the fir
states, "response is itself only one moment in the totality of those
(between art and society). To separate it out and define it as the onl
object for a sociology of art would substitute a methodological prefer
objective interest which forbids any prejudicial definition. In th
preference reflects the procedures of empirical social research, which
able to ascertain and quantify the reception of works."6 As Ador
plained in referring to Paul F. Lazarfeld, this objective interest in im
ignore the social mechanisms and the deeper social structures that f
context of reception processes. Thus, it may appear as though Adorn
tion to empirical impact studies is only aimed at procedures that are
experiences as primary and indisputable data. In fact, his objection h
causes. The sociology of art as conceptually postulated by Critical Th
little use for the reception (the communicative aspect) of the work of
it grasps the social relevance of a text primarily in the work itself.
emphatic concept of the work of art, sustained through all his writin
its autonomy from socially determined communication. According t
the sociology of art focuses on the immanent social content wh
5. Ibid., p. 259.
6. Theodor W. Adorno, "Thesen zur Kunstsoziologie," Ohne Leitbild: Parva
(Frankfurt am Main, 1967), p. 94.
deciphered from the form and technique of the work. Hence it need not hav
recourse to the empirically derived or contingent reactions of reader or audien
The reader, spectator or listener does not appear as an independent category
determining the work because Adorno never questions the hermeneutic act o
understanding. Competence is assumed; the recipient is always an ideal constru
tion which thus cannot violate the text. If this is not the case-as in the relation-
ship between avant-garde art and the mass public-then the blame for t
incompatibility lies with the public. Critical Theory mistrusts for good reaso
socially acceptable communication and its institutions; they are suspected
regression. In this way the reception process is tied to the work and not vic
versa. Insofar as Adorno insists on the social content of artistic structure, h
upholds the principles of representational aesthetics. The work of art, especial
that of the avant-garde, is conceived as a monad that foregoes communicatio
with reality and at the same time correlates with this reality. "Communicati
of the work of art with the external, with the world, to which blissfully or
miserably it closes itself off, happens through non-communication. Here then
proves itself fragmented."7 Adorno's Aesthetic Theory only intensifies, t
verdict of his Theses: "The study of impact neither touches art as a soc
phenomenon nor should it be allowed to dictate norms to art, a position it h
usurped in the spirit of positivism."8 In other words, impact is only seen as
external, and it is assumed that the authentic work of art is not produced wit
view toward concrete expectations but, as it were, blindly. Adorno neglects t
consider that the critical tendency attributed to the authentic work is itself on
imaginable within the framework of a specific, socially mediated literary syste
Because Critical Theory always views this system as alienated, however,
negates the relevancy of the system and substitutes for it the truth content o
the authentic work. In the work lies the final authority and corresponding to
is "an objective faculty of perception which important autonomous works of
art expect as the adequate attitude on the part of the observer, listener
reader."9 It follows from this that the freedom of the recipient is necessaril
limited to a certain point of view if the aesthetic and social content is to mani
fest itself fully.10 Thus, Adorno's prejudice against reception studies has deepe
roots than the justified mistrust toward a reduction of the sociology of art
7. Adorno, Aesthetische Theorie, Gesammelte Schriften, 7 (Frankfurt am Main, 1970

p. 15.
8. Ibid., p. 339.
9. Ibid., p. 360.
10. See Adorno, "Typen des musikalischen Verhaltens," Einleitung in die Musiksoziologie
(Frankfurt am Main, 1962), pp. 13-31.
RECEPTION, AES THE TICS 33
artistic experiences. Adorno's resistance is closely tied to his concept of the

monadic work of art, on the one hand, and to his understanding of commercial-
ized aesthetic communication under the conditions of advanced capitalism, on
the other hand. This is also the source of Adorno's reservations toward Walter
Benjamin's attempt to place reception at the center of artistic criticism an

choose the needs of the masses as the point of departure.
Mandelkow has shown clearly the obstacles toward reception studies
exist in New Criticism.11 Reader studies are classified as extrinsic in contrast
the intrinsic approach which focuses on the literary-aesthetic phenom
itself. The same may be said of textual criticism. For Wolfgang Kayser and E
Staiger the reader is always a well-informed interpretor of art who intuit
text. His subjectivity, which Staiger stresses explicitly as part of the hermen
process, only serves to comprehend the text, according to the assumptions
this school. It is always the individual reader who is confronted with the wor
art. His concrete situation is irrelevant for the act of perceiving and evaluat
his activity is not decisive for the history of literature. Characteristically, St
again professes to historicism in his later studies,12 expecting from it a rem
for impressionistic subjectivism. Phenomenology (Ingarden) demands a
extensive examination, especially since it has become the point of departure
Wolfgang Iser's methodological reflections. As with Adorno, it is possib
identify an obvious reason for Ingarden's rejection of response studies: inv
gation of the reader and his reactions is suspected of psychologizing. If
reader's experience provided the key to the work or if this experience were
identical with the work, then the unity of the work of art would not be gua
teed: "For there would then have to be very many different Hamlets.... Ev
new reading would produce an entirely new work."13 Since such a conclusi
seems absurd, a reception oriented approach is rejected from the outse
formulating a generalized attack against empirical psychologizing, Inga
apodictically cuts off the question whether (and to what extent) the re
participates in constituting a text. Since he attempts to prove phenomenol
cally that the work of art is an autonomous object, he isolates the question
structuring and eliminates the impact caused by a work of art, i.e., the matr
the recipient. This objectification, however, is then partially cancelled
According to Ingarden, the literary text is open vis-i-vis the recipient; it i
schematic structure requiring completion. It is a matter of "indeterminate s
11. Cf. Mandelkow, "Probleme,' 73f.

12. Cf. Staiger, Die Kunst der Interpretation (Zurich, 1955).
13. Roman Ingarden, The Literary Work of Art, transl. by George G. Grabowicz (Evan-
ston, 1973), p. 15.
and "schematized views" which offer the reader the possibility of participating.
"These concretizations are precisely what is constituted during the reading and
what, in a manner of speaking, forms the mode of appearance of a work, the
concrete form in which the work itself is apprehended."'14 Ingarden attempts to
protect himself against all forms of psychological interpretation by carefully
differentiating between concretization and psychic experience. The complex
psychic processes in the reading act appear as a necessary condition of concreti-
zation but are not identical with it. For concretization depends precisely on the
work itself and is determined by its structure. Therefore, it is grounded twice
over. The ideal reader-who is not historically defined-participates only in a
limited way in constituting a work. While the skeleton is an objective given, the
reader is responsible for its completion. "We can deal aesthetically with a literary
work and apprehend it live only in the form of one of its possible concretiza-
tions."15 At the same time, the objectivity of the work of art remains inviolable
for Ingarden. The irritating question as to what happens when the concretiza-
tions deviate significantly from each other is repressed and Ingarden points to
the possibility that the real work may be concealed by a reception that has
severed its ties to the work: "A literary work can be expressed for centuries in
such a masked, falsifying concretization until finally someone is found who
understands it correctly, who sees it adequately and who in one way or another
shows its true form to others."16 In other words, Ingarden too conceives of the
changing actualization as something basically separate from the work, as he
explicitly states: "There is nothing in the essence of the literary work itself that
would necessitate change." 7 Ingarden does not fully develop the possibilities
of a reception-oriented literary criticism and literary history implied in the
concept of concretization because ultimately it is the static, idealistic view of the
literary work which dominates. The initial question for reception studies as well
as for structuralism (Barthes)-how can we reconstruct the meaning of a literary
text-remains unproblematical for Ingarden. The changes which the work under-
goes through external "subjective operations,"18 have to do only with the
attitude toward the work, not with its substance, which is fixed with its being
written. Thus, literary history can be represented in a twofold way: on the one
hand, as the sum of unchanging literary objects, and on the other, as the variety
14. Ibid., p. 332.

15. Ibid., p. 336.
16. Ibid., p. 340.
17. Ibid., p. 345.
18. Ibid., p. 346.
of concretizations related to these objects ("articles, essays, dis

tempts at interpretation"19). This view, to be sure, is not far rem
historicism.
The recent interest in the reader (recipient, addressee and consumer), the
increasing attention paid to processes of literary communication, and the turn
from representational aesthetics of reception (all developing in West and East
Germany at about the same time) are contingent on complex causes of a theore-
tical, ideological and socio-historical nature. Because of these various motiva-
tions, the goals of reception studies can hardly be defined in a unified manner.
All these differing trends, however, undermine the traditional concept of the
work accepted by hermeneutics as well as by Marxist and Critical Theory. No
matter how unrelated the projected models and theorems may seem or how
much they even contradict one another, they must be understood as attempts
and suggestions for transcending the familiar concept of literature. The fact that
earlier answers (Schiicking, Sartre, Escarpit, Russian Formalism) have also been
invoked only demonstrates that the problem is not a new one. Impact studies
have become the focus of literary criticism because they offer new formulations
for the problems of evaluation and history. Mandelkow notes that earlier studies
in the history of impact leave something to be desired as far as methodological
reflection is concerned,20 but this view must be qualified. Such studies usually
conceal their epistemological goal rather than emphasizing it explicitly. Yet the
motives are accessible. Both Julian Hirsch21 and Levin L. Schiicking's early
essay (1913)22 underplay the question as to the possibility of an objective
evaluation. The strict differentiation between descriptive and evaluative judg-
ments leads positivistic literary criticism to the dilemma of relativism. If, under
the premise of strict objectivity, evaluative judgments are separated in principle
from factual judgments, then the former become a matter merely of taste, which
in its turn achieves dignity as it comes to be considered as a material object.
Literature dissolves into two related but not necessarily connected series of
19. Ibid., p. 349.

20. Mandelkow, "Probleme," 72.
21. Julian Hirsch, Die Genesis des Rubmes: Ein Beitrag zurMetbodenlebre der Gescbicbte
(Leipzig, 1914).
22. Levin L. Schiicking, "Literaturgeschichte und Geschmacksgeschichte," GRM, 5 (1913),
561-577.
facts: the history of works (as a register of chronologically ordered texts) and
the history of taste. The traditional literary canon, which earlier criticism had
completely mythicized, reveals itself to the skeptical positivist as the result of
complex socio-historically determined changes in taste which even the recog-
nized masterpiece and the genius cannot escape. Upon acknowledging the
illusion of a permanent literary value which, as it were, levels out after initial
fluctuations, all that could be done given the assumptions of positivism was to
study the evolution of taste. Reader history joined the history of works, or, in
the case of Schiicking, the investigation of literary taste was declared the true
goal of literary history. Except for the technical and methodological procedures
necessary to implement the program, much of what later made its way into the
program of an empirical sociology of audiences can already be found in Schiick-
ing's 1913 essay. Taking obvious aim at the then current fashion of intellectual
history (Geistesgeschichte), Schiicking demanded the abandonment of all
abstract and idealistic models in favor of an analysis of communicative processes,
despite the fact that he had no theoretical model of communication at his
disposal. Although he was not blind to the psychological aspects of reading,
Schiicking stressed the social basis of the projected history of taste. This means
that he demanded the localization of those social strata and groups which, as
vehicles of taste, sustain and steer the literary process. Of course, the social
history of readers was only one part of Schiicking's program, to be supple-
mented by cultural, geographical and anthropological perspectives. The resulting
blur in his focus affected the method adversely and contributed perhaps to
discredit Schiicking's undertaking. Even in his later works the empirical imple-
mentation remained limited; it was left to Robert Escarpit and his school to
extend empirical research beyond Schiicking's attempts.
The crisis in literary evaluation motivated early positivistic reader studies.
Coinciding with the increasing uncertainty of the literary canon in pluralistic
society, these studies attempted to at least make visible and thus to objectify
the process of aesthetic evaluation. The hidden background of the discussion
consisted of the metamorphosis of the reader: the evolution of a massified,
fragmented reading public, the erosion of the literary public sphere of the
bourgeoisie and the transformation of traditional cultural institutions into
instruments of culture industry. Scholarly debate reflected this dilemma of the
bourgeois public sphere, though sometimes in a distorted form. Schiicking
already recognized and described the disintegration of the bourgeois reading
public, the dissolution of literary societies and clubs which had served as control
points for aesthetic communication in the 19th century. Yet this analysis
ignored social and economic causes. Similarly, Robert Escarpit identified later
the difference between an educated and a mass public23 and made

for transcending the barriers without however considering the und
mechanisms to which this separation owes it origins and its perpe
tre's interest differs from this empirical research in that the soc
writer and reader provides him with material for the political quest
relationship between author and public.24 If this relationship i
contract of generosity and freedom in which the completion of the
to the reader, then the social history of reading has the task of r
those moments in which the emancipation of author and reader ma
In other words, for Sartre a sociology of the reading public constit
the basis for a history of taste but also serves as the instrument fo
ing the contemporary literary and social situation. The central ques
is the task of the literary producer in an epoch in which the needs
are the issue but where the only recipient is the bourgeois public?
Sartre (and later Escarpit) offers some relevant conceptual differe
narrative studies by asserting that a work is always directed to a re
the intended reader is not necessarily indentical with the real pub
theories (Lubbock, Stanzel, Limmert) hardly considered the rea
function appeared obvious and, therefore, unproblematical. Primar
revolved around the producer who, as narrator, could employ the
strategies. The discovery by Weinrich, Iser, Harth, Poulet and other
of the reader was apparently generated, even forced by structural
modern novel. When the author removes the formerly guaranteed
the novel and compels the reader first and foremost to construct t
the content, then the author-reader relationship and the relations
the narrator's role and the reader's role in the text become proble
question of the reader, which Schiicking and a sociology of the re
sought to anwer primarily in terms of social factors, now enters in
of the text because it has become apparent that the communica
inherent in the work of art. The phenomenological investigations
Netzer26 aim in the same direction in that they examine the structu
(Appellstruktur) in the text. Of course, these phenomenologica
insight into the connection between the evolving public and the ch
23. Robert Escarpit, Das Buch und der Leser: Entwurf einer Literatursozi
1961).
24. Jean Paul Sartre, What is Literature? (New York, 1965).
25. Wolfgang Iser, Die Appellstruktur der Texte (Konstanz, 1970).
26. Klaus Netzer, Der Leser des Nouveau Roman (Frankfurt am Main, 1970).
of indeterminacy. Just as it was possible only in retrospect to recognize the

indeterminacy resulting from gaps in earlier texts, it would be necessary to
illuminate simultaneously the position, competence and interest of the addressee
group in order to avoid postulating an abstract literary change. G6tz Wienold27
has correctly pointed out the weakness of an aesthetics of reception which holds
on to a traditional concept of literature and thus confines itself to textual
analysis. Reception cannot be reduced to a one-dimensional process (at best with
feedback). Rather it must be placed in the broader context of literary, moral and
socio-political positions which only permit us to decipher the inherited body of
reactions and appropriations (in Wienold's sense). This extension implies that
scholarly criticism itself becomes part of the field of investigation in that it
considers itself a major subject in the study of reception. The results of its
systematic and historical work enter into the process of impact, whether this is
intended or not.
Here we touch on a further perspective: aesthetics of reception as an answer

to the crisis of literary history. This question was raised explicitly by Jauss in
West Germany, with less emphasis by Robert Weimann and Manfred Naumann in
East Germany. In a broader context we could also consider the studies of Sartre,
Nisin and Picon. The French in this regard were introduced into Germany by th
way of German Romance scholarship (Jauss, Weinrich). Whereas in France the
positivistic Lanson school played the role of (delayed) opponent, in Germany it
was historicism and traditional hermeneutics. In addition, in East Germany a
revaluation of the Marxist concept of history began to emerge. The return to a
historical perspective after a phase of predominantly textual analysis in th
1950s made conscious the general crisis without resolving it. But its ties to th
historicist and hermeneutic models of history (if these two can be separated a
all) were not suited for convincing either the formalist or the materialist critics
Jauss, for example, presented his study Literaturgeschichte als Provokation der
Literaturwissenschaft (1967) as a suggestion for salvaging the historicity o
literature by radically curtailing event-oriented historiography. His goal was "to
establish a new relationship between the historical and the aesthetic perspec-
tive."28 Jauss' first thesis reads: "If literary history is to be rejuvenated, the
prejudices of historical objectivism must be removed and the traditional ap
proach to literature must be replaced by an aesthetics of reception and impact
27. Gbtz Wienold, "Textverarbeitung: Ueberlegungen zu einer Kategorienbildung in einer

strukturalen Literaturgeschichte," in Peter Uwe Hohendahl, ed., Sozialgeschichte und
Wirkungsasthetik (Frankfurt am Main, 1974), pp. 97-134.
28. Jauss, Literaturgeschichte, p. 155.
The historical relevance of literature is not based on an organization o

works which is established post factum but on the reader's past exper
the 'literary data'."29 In 1971 Weimann spoke with more reticence of
[of literary history] which were somewhat different in previous stag
development of our society."30 The articulation of the principal epist
goal lead to a reorientation in methodological consciousness-more
formulated in the West than in the East where scholars had to deal with the
tradition of Lukics. The model postulates a definition of historicity where

contrast to the history of events) present and past comprise a unity; consequ
ly the mediation of the past and the present becomes the true task of writ
history. This shift in perspective places impact studies, which before had b
marginal, into the center of the discussion.
III
Empirical reception studies are a product of late 19th-century bourgeois

literary scholarship. One of the reasons why reader studies receded and were
even condemned between 1930 and 1960 is that they were closely associated
with traditional positivism. For those positivist scholars following Taine's lead,
literary history consisted of a process of production and consumption deter-
mined by a series of fundamental factors. The factors introduced by Taine (race,
milieu, temps) remained vague and demanded empirical elucidation. The next
generation, lead by Wilhelm Scherer in Germany and Gustave Lanson in France,
assumed this task. In attempting to conceive literature as a system and to de-
scribe it in terms of its mechanisms, they both encountered the role of the
reader and the literary public. Besides the Taine-tradition, the influence of
Durkheim was also important for Lanson, since it prompted him to overcome
the historian's aversion toward generalizing. Similarly, Scherer dissociated him-
self from the individualizing perspective of the Historical School in his later
Lecture on Poetics (published posthumously in 1888) and moved toward a
systematic analysis of literary structures. His early death prevented its comple-
tion so that German positivism in literary scholarship was relegated to source
studies, and Schiicking was no longer aware of Scherer's preliminary studies.
Under Durkheim's influence, Lanson, however, formulated already in 1904 a
29. Jauss, "Literary History," 9.

30. Robert Weimann, "Gegenwart und Vergangenheit in der Literaturgeschichte," second
revised version in V. ?mega?, ed., Methoden der deutschen Literaturwissenschaft (Frankfurt
am Main, 1971), p. 340.
socio-literary model in which the relation of author, text and reader was ta
into account.31 Of his six theses, three dealt explicitly with processes of liter
impact. The recognized formal possibilities and stylistic regularities of genres a
understood as sedimentations of audience taste from the previous generation
with which the producer must come to terms. In this way Lanson considers ev
the masterpiece as a collective achievement constituted by the author,
literary situation (i.e., literary tradition) and the public. The reverse is also tr
namely, that a work of art determined in this way intervenes actively in th
social structure and elicits reactions which can change the social system. Thu
Lanson conceives of literature as a web of mediations inside and outside of the
work. Two directions must be differentiated. The literary system, determined

traditions such as stylistic conventions, genres, prevailing aesthetic norms, et
influences society; literary communication translates into social action (in th
form of discussions, critique, etc.). In reverse, the social system conditions t
literary system by defining the goals of literary activity. This projected mo
was still far removed from an empirical operational procedure, but nonethel
it presented a theoretically articulated beginning. French literary scholarship
profited from it. For instance, Robert Escarpit, with Henri Peyre's encourag
ment, pursued Lanson's program while explicitly rejecting the earlier positivis
which he accused of transposing methods of natural science onto cultur
studies. Escarpit considers reader studies in connection with an empirica
operative sociology of literature. It is based on literary facts such as boo
reading habit, author and text. Literature represents for Escarpit a multi-dim
sional frame of reference in which factors interact aesthetically, socially an
economically. According to Escarpit, literary sociology (including reader studie
is concerned with such interactions and their constitutive institutions but not
with textual structure itself. Sociology oriented toward texts or generic history
(Luk~cs, Adorno) is typically rejected. The interest in reception is defined in
conformance with this categorical pre-judgment: the reader appears as part of a
socially stratified public, as buyer and consumer of books and as recipient who
permits literary works to affect him. The work appears as a message directed at a
public known to the author and as a commodity produced for a specific market.
As a result, there arises an extensive field of study for reception scholarship for
which Escarpit can hardly do more than present an outline. A few tasks may be
mentioned:
31. Gustave Lanson, "L'histoire litteraire et la sociologie," Revue de Metaphysique et

Morale, 12 (1904), 621-642.
(1) a study of the reading habits of different group

society, as represented by purchasing and borrowing
books, literary preferences and educational backgroun
(2) statistically supported analyses of the literary m
(economic base, estimates, selling techniques, distrib
mechanisms);
(3) motivation and reading conditions;
(4) determination of the author by his public or by
sub-groups.
Some of those categories suggested by Escarpit could indeed be further

differentiated in light of more recent investigations. Thus, the division of the
public based on the French situation into an educated and a mass public is not
only too crude but also too specific. For Escarpit assumes that the educated
public represents a relatively homogeneous unity. He presupposes the unbroken
influence of bourgeois cultural standards which hardly exist any longer in other
advanced capitalist countries (USA, Germany, England). It would be necessary
to examine whether the process of standardization which Escarpit identifies for
the mass public has not already permeated the whole market by means of the
capitalist book industry.
Escarpit's method is descriptive; it operates with a (partially formulated)
model of socio-literary structures from which specific approaches and research
projects can then be derived. Its ideal is a complete representation of all factors
determining literary life; but the inner literary factors play a subordinate role.
The relationship between external and internal aspects needs further clarifica-
tion, for example, the differentiation between addressee and real public adopted
by Sartre. Gotz Wienold32 has justifiably objected to research in literary com-
munication because neither linguistic formalism nor empiricism have so far
adequately defined the elementary communicative processes. His critique that
reader studies limit themselves too frequently to the text-reader relation and
utilize too narrow a definition of literature is least tenable in the case of Escarpit
and Schiicking. They had already considered many problems mentioned by
Wienold, even though they had not fully developed them theoretically. It may
be that Wienold does not consider earlier empirico-historical research as a fore-
runner of his own studies due to its lack of operative hypotheses, which is
especially characteristic in Schiicking's work (first edition 1923).
32. Wienold, "Empirie in der Erforschung literarischer Kommunikation," in J. Ihwe, ed.,

Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik (Frankfurt am Main, 1972), pp. 311-322.
Nevertheless, Schiicking certainly would agree with Wienold's objection to th

dogmatic separation of inner and extra-literary aspects and the subseque
reduction of reception studies to the text and the role of the reader. Schiickin
considers literary taste a social phenomenon. In effect, the subjective reactio
of readers are based on social circumstances such as belonging to a social grou
etc. Thus, literature is understood as an open, non-autonomous system causal
connected to the social infrastructure. In the same way, literary change cann
be described as an immanent process; rather it is only conceivable as the relati
between production and change in taste which in turn originates from changes
the social structure. Method and research program are deduced from these fun
damental assumptions: the correlation between social group and taste as well
between taste and production must be examined methodologically. In oth
words, the central question is in what form social and behavioral ideals deter
mining literary taste are constituted in a group and in what manner this tas
influences literary production thereby causing changes in form and content. T
concept of taste is obviously no longer normative but descriptive. Norms of tas
are variables, valid in the framework of concrete social strata and groups. Thu
the question of taste implies the other question about the advocates of taste. F
Schiicking its typical form (the type of advocate) becomes the key to a literar
history of the reader. Advocates of taste are the connecting link between soci
and literary processes. Whether a work or a literary movement is successful w
depend on the strength and influence of this bearer of taste. Reader groups
determine the popularity of literature and consequently the direction of the
literary dynamic. Should new reader groups emerge or establish themsel
beside the older ones, then new norms will arise to satisfy their specific nee
and these norms will in turn stimulate and control the producers. Therefore
Schiicking says provocatively: "What happens is not as a rule that a taste
modified, but that other persons become the advocates of a new taste."33 Fo
this reason literary production seems, for Schiicking, to be exclusively deter
mined by consumption, in contrast to traditional views. Taste is an indication
what the public (in each case understood as a social group) will expec~t a
support. This confined sociological focus permits Schiicking to offer an inte
pretation of literary pluralism which was not accessible to the emanation theo
developed by the history of ideas. The convergence and opposition of differe
reader groups and strata can explain the diverging literary movements within
given period as well as radical literary change. Of course, it is apparent that th
concept of typical advocates of taste lends itself better to describing than to
33. Schuicking, The Sociology of Literary Taste (Chicago, 1966), p. 82.
explaining such changes. If the typical advocate of taste is defin

nent of the social group, then this construction has no more than
It would be more useful to identify the material conditions from
cultural needs emerge which then result in taste. Schiucking has m
here with intellectual history than he might assume, since
accepts literary ideals and preferences (in other words, cultural
questioning their basis. Yet his model stipulates social groups an
active forces organizing literary production. This explanation igno
tic of production and reception. Schiicking's theoretical mod
rigid causal nexus which does not fit the presented material
historical outline encompasses the various spheres of literary life
investigates the respective correlations (author-public-critic-pub
tor), his theory offers a literary history which sets the aspect of
as absolute. The totality of social processes is not adequately h
ing's perspective is limited to social groups and strata; these are
infrastructure. Therefore, he is forced to ascribe literary shifts
taste to particular units (bourgeoisie, women, etc.). Because liter
18th century can no longer be pressed into this mold, Schiickin
must resort to secondary constructions which contradict his mo
the phenomenon of literary schools, for example, by pointing o
engendered by art-a formalistic interpretation incompatible with
There was little response to Schiicking's investigation in 1923,
second edition of 1931 could make no headway in scholarly ci
ran counter to Geistesgeschichte as well as to volkisch tendencie
were raised to the comparatively simple model as well as to the sk
cal outline; they were directed at details, but in fact aimed a
proach. It is not accidental that the third edition appeared as late
same year as the German translation of Escarpit's book). For it wa
crisis of textual criticism was acknowledged that the socio-histo
and reader studies again became acceptable. The postulated m
pluralism of the early 1960s (basically itself a part of that crisis
rise of empirical reception studies. They were understood as
established methods. Hans Norbert Fiigen's introduction to t
literature (1964)34 provided the theoretical legitimation for this
infringement of sociology on the work of art itself is rejected an
of literature is reduced to the study of relations between the co
34. Hans Norbert Fiigen, Die Hauptrichtungen der Literatursoziologie und

third edition (Bonn, 1968).
participating in literary life.35 In this kind of empirical literary sociology the

connection between the social and literary aspect of the reader's role is severed.
Audience sociology, according to Fiigen, must limit itself to social factors,
whereas phenomenology is called upon to illuminate inner aspects of the work
of art. Even Schiicking's and Escarpit's works would not have satisfied this
rigorous separation. Inner-literary aspects are considered relevant in the social
sphere only to the extent that a specific literary attitude between author and
reader is assumed which eliminates any confusion between fictive and non-
fictive statements. The correct perception that in literature the social is not
exhausted by the representation of social relations36 becomes, by a slight of
hand, a dogmatic barrier confining reception studies to the sphere of statistical
verification. Since Filgen respects literary attitudes as an objective cultural
paradigm preceding the sociology of literature, he avoids the significant question
as to how literary attitudes are constituted under particular social conditions,
how they change, etc. The assumption that literature can always be recognized
as literature and, thus, that the attitude toward it comprises a constant is the
sociological counterpart to that form of textual interpretation which ascribes
an eternal nature to the work of art.
Intensified methodological reflection has generated empirical reception

research but has also presented it with larger theoretical problems. Despite the
growing number of specialized investigations, fundamental questions have still
been left unanswered. Wienold, for instance, noted recently: "The image that
arises from empiricism in the study of literary communication is scanty and
dismal."37 The high expectations of understanding reception and impact pro-
cesses with the aid of linguistic models have not been wholly fulfilled. The most
concrete and acceptable results have emerged from the evaluations of question-
naires handed out to selective groups, for example, by Eberhard Frey.38 In
order to obtain information about reader reactions and evaluation processes,
Frey presented his test subjects with excerpts from texts written by various
authors and asked them for criticism. The results indicate that language compe-
tence and literary training significantly influence reactions and evaluations.
35. For Filgen, the subject matter of a sociology of literature is that "human activity
which deals with literature and tries to further it and which, on close examination, reveals
itself as a complex of forms of interhuman behavior." Ibid., p. 106.
36. Ibid., p. 115.
37. Wienold, "Empirie," p. 320.
38. Eberhard Frey, "What is Good Style? Reader Reactions to German Text Samples,"
Modern Language Journal, 56 (1972), 310-323.
Consensus about the aesthetic quality of a text increases if the test subj
come from a similar literary environment. Naturally linguistic and stylisti
theories of communication ask mainly about the poetic qualities of literatur
and introduce, therefore, a normative and selective element, abridging
empirical investigation. Wienold has legitimately criticized this, reconsideri
Adorno's question as to whether and how empirical procedures can apprehen
literary communication (taken for granted by literary scholarship). Yet he av
Adorno's agnosticism and recommends a semiological definition of liter
processes of communication which introduces a broader concept of text
breaks with the traditional view of literature.39 Wienold suggests a gen
model which could preserve both the positivistic and phenomenological
proaches. He is right in noting that reception studies can hardly be reduced
examining the author-reader relation; his charge that such a reduction under
most of the previous studies is more questionable. This critique does no
justice even to phenomenological reception studies, let alone to audience soci
ogy (Attick, Ford, Haferkorn, Engelsing). Conceptual obscurity can be held
part responsible for this misunderstanding-Jauss, for instance, speaks of t
reader, but his idealistic construct of the typical reader circumscribes a liter
and social situation with a broad framework of communication. The horizon of
expectation postulated by Jauss implies agreement among the participants in
literary life. In this sense genre expectations are socially conditioned.
Wienold's suggestion of 1971 aims at a general model of literary communica-
tion applicable to any situation. This explains its abstractness. It distinguishes
point of departure, direction and kind of appropriation (e.g., simple and com-
plex feedback processes, multimedia processes, transitions from one medium to
another). In this way an understanding of the complete breadth of reception
processes is insured. The model could be concretized in an actual situation, that
is, by means of a specific text or set of texts at a certain historical point in time.
Specifically, Wienold demands of an empirical method that it develop proce-
dures to elaborate objectively both the qualitative and quantitative aspects of
appropriation. Thus he noted skeptically in 1972: "We lack not only valid
descriptions for the operations but also an appropriate methodology for examin-
ing reactions."40 Yet we should first ask whether the model does not require
certain additions to enable it to encompass the totality of literary life. Wienold
restricts his concept to communicative acts determined by a point of departure,
a goal and a carrier of communication (adaptor). Literary life consists then of
39. Wienold, "Textverarbeitung," p. 97.

40. Wienold, "Empirie," p. 321.
the ensemble of such communicative acts (translations, discussions, reviews,

paraphrases, productions, etc.). The institutional basis of such communicative
processes is implicitly accepted-press, academe, theatre, which codetermine
the form and content of communicative structures. Scholarship cannot succeed
without confronting these institutional foundations because the self-image as
well as the objective situation of communicators is usually prejudiced by the
institutional framework. Especially in the case of diachronic investigations the
explicit disclosure of the institutional basis is indispensable. To name but one
example, an 18th-century literary debate follows different "laws" than a debate
in the 20th century. 17th-century translations are bound by different prerequi-
sites than those of the 19th century. Communications theory needs to be
embedded in investigations about sustaining institutions and their social and
economic backgrounds.
This is the point where sociological and psychological research in communica-
tion would coincide with literary reception studies. Wienold is right in identify-
ing Roland Barthes' distinction between the institutional and the psychological
side of literature as unsatisfactory. Yet, it is not enough simply to point out
that, e.g., the normative suppositions of literary criticism are part of the literary
system under question. The emergence and ideological justification of such
norms can only be discussed with reference to the institutions which make them
feasible. Wienold rightfully insists on regarding codifications and changes in
evaluation as parts of literature, and as such accessible to systematic and histori-
cal analysis. Yet, it will not suffice to simply register them, but rather it will be
necessary to clarify the institutional context. Only such a broadening of pers-
pective will allow "a structuring of evaluative formulations [andj norms in such
a way that a description of change will become possible."41 Wienold indicates
an institutional approach with his suggestion to consider literary evaluation as a
game in which literary partners participate according to standardized (yet
changeable) rules. It remains to be seen whether game theory can provide an
important contribution, but it is certain that the specific needs of participants
must be taken into account. It is not a question of an abstract process of aesthe-
tic evaluation but rather, due to real interests, usually a question of complex
(and ideological) decisions. Who has the right to judge literature and who is
supposed to accept these judgments in a communicative system? Those are
problems to be investigated immediately, but a descriptive model will hardly
explain their practical implications if it does not reflect on the interests of those
investigating. It must not be forgotten that the questioning subject is itself a part
41. Wienold, "Textverarbeitung," p. 115.
of literary life, and that his perceptions and assumptions act up

and influence it. The meta-language of scholarship cannot be ex
tral. For example, it would be possible given a sufficiently soph
to describe the mechanisms which play a role in formulating the
(predominance of reader groups, preferences, repression, contro
criticism), but it would not be possible to comprehend whether
so described are justified or not. Unacknowledged pre-dispositio
problem already in its formulation, as in the case of research on
ture. On the basis of stratifications found in literary life the sph
(i.e., bad) literature is supposedly defined objectively, although i
more sense to reveal the hidden norms behind such distinctions in order to
identify popular literature as a special case of canonization. However, it

permitted to separate clarifying a subject matter from taking a position
When Wienold demands of reception studies: "Canons of all kinds, c
tions, repertoires, text selections in programs of institutions disseminatin
such as press, radio, television, videotape, should be analyzed specifically f
perspective sensitive to participation in structuring opportunities of str
non-homogeneous communicative systems,"42 then the question again ar
to how this participation might be evaluated.
IV
The present state of empirico-analytical reception research can be adequately

summarized in the following way: the juxtaposition of representational and
reception aesthetics becomes increasingly meaningless as a more complete model
emerges which takes both production and consumption into consideration. In
this respect, we can identify a convergence with East German attempts in the
field of literary scholarship. From the outset Marxist scholars were interested in
integrating the reception model into the dominant aesthetics of representa-
tion.43 Against the background of the authoritative view oriented toward the
base/superstructure relation, their attitude wavers between intensive, although
critical interest and relative tolerance of an area of scholarship considered
secondary. Although it was seldom admitted, the theoretical stimuli for revalu-
ating the Marxist position came undeniably from the West. Especially the work
of Weinrich, Jauss and Escarpit provoked a response, as has become clear from
42. Ibzd., p. 132.

43. Cf. Mandelkow, "Rezeptionsiisthetik und marxistische Literaturtheorie," in Histori-
zitdt in Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft, ed. by Walter Miiller Seidel (Munich, 1974), pp.
379-388.
the reactions. Moreover, the growing scholarly exchange in the field of linguistics
in the 1960s undoubtedly benefited reception theory indirectly. The new
contacts gave rise to questions which had not been foreseen by orthodoxy. For
example, in literary history influenced as it was by Georg Lukaics the reader as a
problematical category was non-existent. Lukics' late interest in questions
concerning the aesthetics of impact in his Aesthetik (1963) only confirms this
state of affairs. Here too the priority of production over reception is assumed.
Independent Marxist views from the 1920s and 1930s (Brecht, Benjamin) were
for the most part overlooked, and the relevant comments in Marx's and Engels'
writings were not taken up until later. Nonetheless, by the 1960s the confronta-
tion with aesthetics of reception could no longer be avoided in East Germany on
theoretical and practical grounds. In 1970 Robert Weimann openly pointed to
the cultural-political interest: "Whereas during the postwar years the historical
materialist prerequisites first had to be acquired and the irrational and national-
istic falsification of German literary history rejected, in the following years it
was possible to consider not only the historical genesis of literature but also
more consistently its contemporary impact in forming personality and con-
sciousne ss. ,43 a
The discussion of Russian Formalism and its concept of literary history,
which had been cut off earlier in the Soviet Union, reentered East German
scholarship in the 1960s by way of Czech and French variants of structuralism
(West Germany had already treated the subject). This explains why East German
scholarship appropriated reception theory primarily from the perspective of the
history of philosophy, whereas other aspects such as communications theory and
semiotics have remained in the background. Jauss' study was considered a chal-
lenge not only because of its critique of Marxist literary theory. Even objectively
it had to be the center of the debate because Jauss, more than Iser, Weinrich and
the empirical theorists, took up the problem of historicity with the question of
hermeneutics. Fundamental theoretical decisions were at stake, as can also be
seen in Bernd Jiirgen Warneken's (West German) critique of Jauss' model.44
Closely connected to this theoretical interest is the wish for more empirical
information about the new socialist literary public. The critique of bourgeois
reading culture, such as Klaus Ziermann offered,45 should be complemented by
an inventory of reader attitudes in East Germany. Characteristically the discus-
sion in this research area has been influenced by positivistic-empirical methods
43a. Weimann, "Gegenwart," p. 340f.

44. Bernd Jiirgen Warneken, "Zu Hans Robert Jauss' Programm einer Rezeptionsiisthetik,"
in Peter Uwe Hohendahl, ed., Sozialgeschichte und Wirkungsdsthetik (Frankfurt am Main,
1974), pp. 290-296.
45. Klaus Ziermann, Romane vom Fliessband (Berlin Ost, 1969).
(Escarpit, Hofstitter). East German scholars seem to find empiri

more tolerable than the Marxist theorists in West Germany. (W
critique of Fiigen may serve as an example.46) Naturally they do
methodological axiom that research must be value-free; empirica
clearly serve the cultural-political goals of strengthening the so
public. Achim Walter's essay on socially conditioned reader moti
it obvious that there is more to empirical reader studies in East
the simple working through of a new research object. First, the
function of an empirically operating sociology had to be sec
Naumann's critique of empirical methods,48 which Walter allude
strates all too clearly how narrow the range is for developin
descriptive model. By labeling all empirical, statistical work
Naumann indirectly places East German sociology under suspicio
ism. Walter tries to extricate East German empirical reader stud
reproach. He is right in differentiating between positivistic
descriptive procedures which can be integrated into materialism
demands to investigate subjective processes of consciousness
literary life. For according to him, insight into these proces
understanding how and to what extent literature as part ot the
affects the social infrastructure. Walter stresses here the formative effect of
literature on community and personality in contrast to its reflective (wider
spiegelnd) character, emphasized by Lukics in his aesthetics. Correspondingly
subjective motivations (unlike statistically registered facts about selling a
borrowing) necessitate more exhaustive examination. But by relating his analy
to the social structure Walter avoids separating the subjective-psychical from
objective-social processes.
Taken literally, the goal is not to illuminate individual reading experiences b
rather to understand that which may generally be expected and demand
Motivational research is concerned at the same time with shaping motivation
The reader as partner is not only to be questioned but also to be exhort
Because the habitual dispositions of social behavior can be learned, the discus
sion revolves around the optimal conditions under which "individual aspects
46. Warneken, "Zur Kritik der positivistischen Literatursoziologie," in Literaturwiss

schaft und Sozialwissenschaft, I, second edition (Stuttgart, 1972), pp. 81-150.
47. Achim Walter, "Sozial bedingte Lesemotivation," in Hohendahl, Sozialgeschichte,
269-289.
48. Manfred Naumann, "Literatur und Leser," Weimarer Beitrdge, 16:5 (1970), 95.
shaping motivations can be [incorporatedj into socially desirable and necessary

behavior without limiting their subjective side."49 Impact studies imply, there-
fore, interest in specific responses, namely in the functions of cognition, enjoy-
ment, and experience which together constitute an adequate aesthetic experi-
ence. In this spirit Dietrich Sommer and Dietrich Loffler tried to describe and
evaluate reader behavior in East German society using the example of Hermann
Kant's novel Die Aula (The School Auditorium). Just as Walter, they integrate
into their empirical investigation the presumption that even in reading behavior
socialist society must differ fundamentally from capitalist society. The split
between an educated and a popular public, introduced as a matter of course by
Escarpit and others into their investigations, is considered untenable for socialist
society, as the authors assert in their preliminary remarks: "Marxist-Leninist
impact studies contribute to an optimal shaping of the revolutionary social
function of our literature which promotes increasingly the development of a
unified aesthetic culture in socialist society."50 In this respect, empirical recep-
tion studies in East Germany are responsible for projecting patterns of literary
communication which guarantee a maximal impact for realistic literature. In the
search for literary experiences which would have an immediate impact on the
community, interest has focused on the identification of the reader with the
positive hero. Bernhard Zimmerman has noted that methodologically the au-
thors are not so far removed from Escarpit, for they share the view that ade-
quate reception is characterized by recognition and acceptance of the author's
intention.51 This means that deviant readings are registered but finally disquali-
fied. Thus, Sommer/Loffler indicate in their interpretation of readers' responses
to Kant's novel "that, despite the differences expressing the special interests of
specific groups and individuals, the general public is potentially united in its
opinion.''52 In order to measure the correspondance of intended textual mean-

ing and actual reader reaction, they introduce Peter R. Hofstitter's polarity
profile. The semantic differential indicates the preference of the reader for the
positive hero of socialist realism. Because the norm of the socialist hero is
already written into the questionnaire, the expected and actual (i.e., tested)
reactions are identical. Such impact studies assume the role of a mediating
corrective between the aesthetic and socializing content of the works and the
49. Walter, "Lesemotivation," p. 276.

50. Dietrich Sommer/Dietrich Loffler, "Soziologische Probleme der literarischen Wirkungs-
forschung," Wiemarer Beitrage, 16:8 (1970), 51.
51. Bernhard Zimmerman, unpublished paper, February, 1972.
52. Sommer/L6ffler, "Soziologische Probleme," 57.
reading behavior of the public, i.e., the totality of recipients. And ind
directions: questioning and testing are supposed to illuminate w
expects from the reader (identification with the exemplary intentio
work), and they also serve to criticize the work if the latter fails to
widespread popular impact. East German impact research has distanc
from the tendency inherent in formalistic reception studies to critic
the fixation on content and its meaning and to put all the emphasis o
actualizations. The East German critics continue to postulate the exis
objective meaning as well as the possibility of its correct reconstructi
quently reception studies assume the function of examining whether
tization has realized or missed this meaning. Viewed schematically, mi
tation may arise for two reasons: lack of training on the reader's part
cient clarity of the message in the work itself. In the first case, resear
a didactic role by offering instruments for improving the level _-
education; in the second case, it indicates to the author why his liter
munication is insufficient. Production and consumption begin to app
other in such a way that "the tendency toward a unity of ideational c
artistic quality on the one hand and their correspondance to the gro
needs and to the recipients' relatively adequate ability to enjoy on
hand" must become apparent.53 Such reception studies are critical in
specific moments in literary life (such as representation and understa
not, however, in relation to the theory of socialist realism. Reader pa
means that the reader realizes a pre-established ideal (the socialis
man). The narrow orientation of empirical research to specific aesth
limits the correct insight that in the long run impact cannot be exp
cybernetic model but rather only by an analysis of the totality of s
dependencies.54
The practical interest of East German empirical research in def
mechanisms of the literary public corresponds to the theoretical int
methodologists in clarifying the relationship between the present an
tradition. GDR research adheres to the Marxist-Leninist theorem th
literature, as long as it was progressive, can be considered the prede
socialist culture. Georg Lukics wrote mainly about bourgeois lite
rejected the experiments of proletarian writers in the 1920s and ear
53. Ibid., 71.

54. Ibid., 74.
55. Cf. Georg Lukiics, "Reportage oder Gestaltung? Kritische Bemerkungen anlisslich des
Romans von Ottwalt," Literatursoziologie (Neuwied, 1961), pp. 122-156. Also Helga Gallas,
Marxistischbe Literaturtheorie (Neuwied and Berlin, 1971), pp. 119-130.
According to Lukaics, as long as no independent socialist culture existed, only

the progressive traditions in bourgeois literature could serve as model. The cano
of classical realists from Goethe to Thomas Mann has a direct, binding value.
Only those aspects in works of art are historically relativized which link them t
their period of genesis. For any reading experience, however, the objectiv
meaning must be presumed. In Lukics' aesthetics, then, the problem of appro
priation appears from the outset as a question of correct reading and critical
understanding of the form-content relation. For Lukics, reception is a gradua
process extending from a naive familiarization with the fictive world to a reflec
tive differentiation of elements of form and content. Passive moments predom
nate: in contrast to the author, the reader assumes primarily a contemplative
role. In Lukaics system reception and impact are successive processes. Passive re
ception is followed by the "ensuing impact"56 in which the experience of art
transferred into social activity. Aristotelian theory obviously provides the mod
for this definition. The mediating concept is Aristotelian catharsis; it connect
inner experience with social action. The fundamental relationship betwee
productivity and receptivity indicated here delineates the conception of t
reception process. When the work of art represents the unity of a homogeneou
diversity (microcosm), then the recipient enters at least temporarily into thi
second reality. To experience art means to appropriate the previously alien int
the self from which the recipient then goes forth thinking and acting in new an
changed ways. Lukaics refuses, however, to derive this action directly from the
work of art or to place the work of art exclusively at its service. He defines
impact as the transformation of cognitive and emotional experience into socia
behavior in general. "'Naturally the individuality of one single work can often
mean a complete change in someone's life."57 In contrast to Sartre, who sees
the act of writing as an appeal to the reader to complete the work by concre-
tizing it, Lukaics tends to underemphasize the socially constructive aspect of
literature. The active character of literature appears mediated through individu
literary experiences. The addressee is the individual, not the group or the mass,
and surprisingly it is an abstract individual. Lukics pays even less attention to
the socio-cultural conditions which structure the reader's reception competence
He acknowledges such factors but does not develop them.
This may be the reason why reception theory in the GDR derives little inspira
tion from Lukics but rather seeks discussion with the phenomenological and
56. Lukics, Aesthetik, vol. 1, part 1 (Neuwied/Berlin, 1963), p. 809. See also Wern
Mittenzwei, "Die Brecht-Lukaics-Debatte," Argument, 10:1/2 (1968), 12-43, esp. 33ff.
57. Lukacs, "Das Nachher des rezeptiven Erlebnisses," reprinted in Hohendahl, Sozial
geschichte, p. 196.
structural approaches in the West. The provocation lay in Jauss' claim

the social function of literature by means of reception aesthetics-in e
reveal the socially constructive function by not focusing on reality as t
mining factor but by investigating the power of change generated by l
itself. Jauss directs his central criticism of Marxist theory (still pres
third edition) at its alleged adherence to the "mimetic function" (a
Funktion) of art rather than seeing the possibility implied by Marx of
ing literature in the context of the concept of labor. According to Ja
sociologizing which he ascribes to Marxist theory in general (i.e., t
derivation of artistic production from specific socio-economic condition
deny any active role of literature. "Whoever restricts art to reflection a
its impact to the recognition of that which has already been compreh
renounced heritage of Platonic mimesis avenges itself here."58 The tra
tion of Marxist theory which Jauss suggests in the third edition of h
(following Werner Krauss, Karel Kosfk and Roger Garaudy) would inte
relationship of art and reality onesidedly in the sense that art influen
action-a bias which Marxist theorists have rejected with good reason b
is incompatible with a materialist position. Warneken rightly objects
critique: "For Jauss genesis, structure and function disjoin to the disa
of the first two factors; he can only conceive of these in terms of a so
knowledge or an intrinsic criticism, thus isolating either the gene
work."59 Consequently, the framework for a theory of reception in t
can be formulated in the following manner: the formalistic problemati
history and the question about the possibility of actualizing the literary
for the East German literary public suggest a shift in theory. In 1970 N
and Weimann took up the discussion in the pages of Weimarer Beitrd
admitted the significance of Jauss' question while rejecting the idea t
suggestions could eliminate the dilemma of literary history. Naumann i
in arguing that only to a limited degree can the potential of literature
consciousness be regarded as a socially constructive force. In other wo
perception of circumstances hardly implies by necessity a change in soc
Naumann, therefore, even prefers the empiricist Escarpit because he
consideration what phenomenological reception aesthetics does actually
look: that the reader is a member of a real society that determines in m
his scope of consciousness and action. Of course, Marxist theory cannot
at the level of an analysis of literary facts. Marx's introduction to the C
58. Jauss, Literaturgeschichte, p. 162.

59. Warneken, "Zu Hans Robert Jauss," p. 293.
Political Economy (185 7) offers the point of departure. Any theory of reception
based on Marx's authority cannot ignore his comment on the genesis and func-
tion of classical art: "But the difficulty is not in grasping the idea that Greek art
and epos are bound up with certain forms of social development. It lies rather in
understanding why they still constitute for us a source of aesthetic enjoyment
and in certain respects prevail as the standard and model beyond attainment."60
Karel Kosik has pointed out that this remark transcends its specific meaning as
related to classical art and that it indicates the fundamental problem of histo-
ricity.61 Experience tells us that works of art do not disappear with the relations
of production from which they have originated. For the many variants of
historical determinism this experience is inexplicable. For, if one assumes that
social relations condition the work of art and that consequently it is to be under-
stood as the unique expression of these special relations, then it would be
condemned to disappear as soon as the situation changes. Its truth content
would be reduced to the period of genesis, and its contemporary public would
become the only relevant recipient. The experience, however, that past works of
art "live," that-as Marx claims-they still "afford us aesthetic enjoyment"
although they have been historically superceded, demands a non-reductive his-
torical model which can do justice to the posteriority of works of art. Naumann
speaks of a reappropriation out of the diachronic process in which the work of
art is situated "as a product. Reappropriation can then raise the work of art to
the synchronic level of a present where it functions and lives."62 Here he
approaches Kosik's hypothesis that historicity is not unique and unrepeatable,
but rather that it includes the possibility of functioning in concretizations
beyond its own period of genesis.6 3 According to this view, history is construed
as a sequence of events in which human subjects (acting within extant relations)
produce processes, which they then recognize as their past. These processes are
not only markings in the current of history but also results that must be reappro-
priated. Therefore, it is not necessary to ascribe a transcendent character in the
Platonic sense to the work of art, for the Absolute and Universal "is reproduced
in every epoch as a particular result and as something specific."64 The product
entering into history can be utilized by later generations. Thus, the present, as a
60. Karl Marx, The Grundrisse, ed. and transl. by David McLellan (New York, 1971),
p. 45.
61. Karel Kosik, "Historism and Historicism," chapter from Die Dialektik des Konkreten
(Frankfurt am Main, 1967). Reprinted in this issue.
62. Naumann, "Literatur und Leser," 94.
63. Kosik, in this issue on page 67.
64. Ibid., 71.
permanently shifting horizon, does not face a past devoid of

results which are indelibly integrated into the present. Works
they have "permanently enriched the human subject."65 In t
speaks of the changed task of literary history to reconstruct
of its present relationship to past literature. The intention o
cannot be simply a renewal of literary history, as von Wiese
have demanded, but must be-and this is where the history of
its paradigmatic importance-a redefining of the concept
informs the representation of literary history. Weimann th
reception research has a function of opening up problems. How
no valid solutions as long as it isolates the history of genesis fr
Literature is at once the reflex of the period of genesis and of
process of concretization). Past and present are not to be separ
to Marx, the "historical development amounts in the last ana
the last form considers its predecessors as stages leading up to
perceives them from a single point of view, since it is very
under certain conditions that it is capable of self-criticism,"
reconstruction of the past cannot ignore the present and mu
ceding forms in the light shed on them by the last one. Com
assumes command of the present rather than excluding it, a
have it. In this sense, it would be necessary to reverse what W
the relationship of the history of genesis to that of impact. W
that consciousness of historical impact must draw on genetic h
more reasonable to assume that genetic history becomes sens
draws on the history of impact. "For it is not a question of
works in the context of their time, but rather of describing
recognizes them, i.e., our own time, by evolving the tim
them."67 Therefore, making available the literary heritage t
solution as long as they cannot grasp these traditions.
The reader as a member of contemporary society stand
communicative chain, but in the process of appropriating th
past he produces his literary history. Weimann, however, emp
this contemporary consciousness is once again the product of
from past literature. In other words, the recipient's conscious
extent pre-structured by whatever he has acquired and m
65. Ibid., 74.

66. Marx, The Grundrisse, p. 40.
67. Benjamin, "Literaturgeschichte und Literaturwissenschaft," Angelus Novus (Frankfurt
am Main, 1966), p. 456.
product. Here positivistic empiricism falls behind the goal of historiography

because it lets literary life congeal into facts from which the subject has been
eliminated. Fiigen's suggestion to separate literary criticism and literary sociol-
ogy breaks up the dialectical unity of production and reception, and as a result
suppresses the critical cognitive value of reception studies. Marx's Critique of
Political Economy describes the manner in which production relates to con-
sumption. Consumption determines production (including works of art) in two
ways: only consumption makes the product into a useful object ("a garment
becomes a real garment only through the act of being worn,"68 the novel really
becomes a novel through the act of being read); and moreover, actual consump-
tion becomes an indicator of needs to be filled by new production. In reverse,
production determines consumption in three ways: in terms of content by
delivering the object (the novel which can be read); formally, by influencing the
ways and means of consuming (e.g., by influencing the specific attitude appro-
priate to the consumption of the literary work); and, finally, by determining the
consumer whose attitude and needs are formed by the product ("The object of
art... creates an artistic public, appreciative of beauty"69). For this reason,
Marx speaks of "consumptive production" and "productive consumption."
Literary reception, as a special case of consumption, is then the key to under-
standing literary production, of course, not in the sense of a deterministic
external factor but rather as part of the dialectical relationship indicated above.
Thus outside interference aimed at politically manipulating consumption can do
justice to this relationship only if production has already created the conditions.
Otherwise production would become one-sidely constrained. Assuming a fully
developed socialist literary public implies the danger of stipulating the antici-
pated ideal conditions of reception as given and then decreeing what shall be
read. In this capacity reception studies would evolve as control mechanisms
whereas they are intended as a critical instrument for historical understanding.
As a result, the production norm would be derived from the assumed needs of
the readers. This variant of impact theory which would treat the reader as a
stencil would be the matching opposite of that abstract aesthetics of reception,
rightly criticized by Naumann, which transfers the concept of the reader entirely
into the text and thus eliminates the concrete addressee and his needs as derived
from the fundamental social relations.
68. Marx, The Grundrisse, p. 24f.

69. Ibid., p. 26.
We cannot ignore the question as to why Walter Benjamin's philosophy of

history-which could make an essential contribution to a materialistic theory of
reception-has scarcely been absorbed by literary scholarship in East Germany.
One reason may be that Benjamin's literary remains were controlled primarily by
the Frankfurt School, and under Adorno's influence reception of the later
writings was delayed. Probably more important is the fact that these later
writings (having produced such an explosive effect in West Germany after 1965)
did not coincide with the fundamental cultural policies in East German literary
scholarship. Their attempt to integrate the bourgeois-humanistic tradition into
contemporary socialism would have found a critical observer in Benjamin. In
an essay on Eduard Fuchs he commented skeptically on the idea of cultural
history: "Cultural history, to be sure, enlarges the weight of the treasure which
accumulates on the back of humanity. Yet cultural history does not provide the
strength to shake off this burden in order to be able to take control of it. The
same is true for the socialist educational efforts at the turn of the century which
were guided by the star of cultural history."70 Benjamin views critically any
faith in continuity or belief in development and progress. His reflections on
history defy basic hermeneutic categories; the process of cognition is understood
as an intervention that recovers from the past what the present situation de-
mands. Benjamin's comments on the importance of reception, as presented in his
essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, cannot be
separated from the related and interpenetrating thoughts on history. They are
useless for empirical positivism because they remain essentially speculative, but
neither can they be easily assimilated into an orthodox Marxist position. Helmut
Lethen has attempted to claim them for Marxist theory.71 Despite his justified
critique of the Frankfurt School and its suppression of materialist aspects in
Benjamin's writings, his undertaking was not without its own limitations. In
order to establish parallels with Brecht, Lethen excludes, for instance, the
theological, messianic motifs as explicated in the Theses on the Philosophy of
History. But it is only by recognizing the interaction of these motifs with the
materialist postulates that one can comprehend the direction and singularity of
Benjamin's comments on the history of reception. Lethen and Habermas have
70. Benjamin, "Eduard Fuchs: Collector and Historian," New German Critique, 5 (Spring
1975), 36.
71. Helmut Lethen, "Zur materialistischen Kunsttheorie Benjamins," alternative, 56/7
(1967), 225-234.
demonstrated that they cannot be integrated into the formulations of Critical

Theory.72 Benjamin's critique follows the twofold goal of explaining the bour-
geois concept of art with its inherent mode of reception, and of differentiating
mass reception from the fascist misuse of art for mass suggestion. The concept of
aura, which points to the traditional relationship between the work of art and
the observer, assumes a central critical function because it helps to describe the
radical change in the historical context of art. By identifying the loss of aura in
the 19th century as the disappearance of the traditionally established cultic
relationship, Benjamin exposes the problem of bourgeois aesthetic enjoyment
which once more, though in vain, attempted to stop qualitative change by
stressing the autonomy of art. The present situation which Adorno conceives
primarily as manipulation of the masses under the culture industry provides the
possibility of emancipation for the masses in Benjamin's historical construction.
The deritualization of art, which in the early modern period made its autonomy
possible and then later undermined precisely this autonomy, requires art's use by
the masses who are unfamiliar with the contemplative attitude demanded by
auratic art. Benjamin casually registers the shock of the art connoisseur con-
fronted by this process: "The greatly increased mass of participants has pro-
duced a change in the mode of participation. The fact that the new mode of
participation first appeared in a disreputable form must not confuse the specta-
tor.,73 Not concentration but distraction is expected from the mass public, that
is, critical distraction. Thus, according to Benjamin, collective reception becomes
an instrument of political praxis, a dimension which is eliminated from advanced
bourgeois dealings with art characterized by a cultivation of private contempla-
tion. It becomes such an instrument due to the technical means of production
enabling the mass reproduction of works of art. As Benjamin suggests, that
such products may be art is a function which "later may be recognized as
incidental."74
If the aura disappears, that is, if the distance of the authentic disappears and
the reproduced object comes into the hands of the masses, then the question
of the relationship between producer and recipient must be reformulated.
Benjamin's hope to overcome the "disreputable form" of mass consumption
rests on the assumption that under the conditions of modern technology the
receivers can at any time become authors. For instance, the public would enter
72. Jurgen Habermas, "Bewusstmachende oder rettende Kritik-die Aktualitiit Walter

Benjamins," in Zur Aktualitiit Walter Benjamins, ed. by S. Unseld (Frankfurt am Main,
1972), pp. 173-223.
73. Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," in Illumina-
tions, p. 241.
74. Ibid., p. 227.
into a permanent critical dialogue with itself by extending its work to

media of film, etc. Benjamin credits the masses with the ability to unite
external assistance) aesthetic pleasure and scientific knowledge-separat
the advanced bourgeois culture industry. Benjamin's confidence (not sh
Adorno) that the obvious manipulation of the masses in advanced capit
be liquidated derives from his examination of tendencies both on the l
the infrastructure and superstructure. Associated with the mechanical
ducibility of art is a change in perception which releases new energies
no longer be retracted. This means: the products resulting from te
mediate the changed form of consumption (mass reception through dist
and the new consumption in turn mediates needs as well as production
as photography and film cannot be subsumed under the traditional con
art, they reach the masses. The masses begin to develop a critical perce
not by means of cultural training but merely by living with the work
matter of changing experience, but not necessarily of crippling it, as
Theory has suggested (Adorno, Tiedemann). "The deritualization of art
the risk that the work of art will surrender its experiential content wit
and become no more than banal; on the other hand, the disintegration
introduces the possibility of generalizing and making permanent the ex
of happiness."75 Breaking with the cultic basis of art must have repercu
our relationship to ancient art and literature. The historicist position of
cation which affirms tradition and presumes "the values of eternity a
tery" becomes impossible. If the past is to be reconstructed, then it m
salvaged from the spell of historical ruins, for "the true picture of the
by. The past can be seized only as an image which flashes up at the insta
it can be recognized and is never seen again."7 Benjamin's attempt
relies on materialism because materialism alone possesses the ability "t
history against the grain."77 The historian must protest the appropria
history by the ruling class: he must attempt "to wrest tradition away
conformism."78
There is a controversy as to whether Marxist materialism and the m
construction of history are integrated in Benjamin's later writings
Habermas considers the attempt unsuccessful: "This attempt had to fai
the anarchic conception of present times-which virtually penetrat
75. Habermas, "Bewusstmachende oder rettende Kritik," p. 199.

76. Benjamin, "Theses," p. 257.
77. Ibid., p. 259.
78. Ibid., p. 257.
intermittently from above-cannot be easily assimilated into the materiali

theory of social development."79 The discussion of this point has undoubtedly
not yet come to an end. One would have to consider, for example, that Benja-
min's objection to historical continuity as perceived by historicism dissolves th
process-like character of history based on human labor. In Benjamin's words:
"In this structure [the historical materialist] recognizes the sign of a Messian
cessation of happening, or put differently, a revolutionary chance in the fig
for the oppressed past."80 Here we find the reasons why orthodox Marxis
has been hesitant in allowing Benjamin's thoughts to enter into its system
Historical experience which pierces conformity and frees the past from the
rubble of tradition (the continuity of eternal sameness) is-for Benjamin-insepa
rable from messianic detemporalization.
The orthodoxy raises similar objections to Sartre's analysis of the relationship
between author and reader. In the East they are mentioned with reserve, in the
West the Frankfurt School, especially Adorno, has countered them: the centr
idea of commitment seemed a reduction of the problem of art and society in th
period of advanced capitalism. Thus, Sartre's thoughts played a relatively minor
role among German leftists although they demonstrably influenced historical
literary criticism in France. French theory of reception is strongly indebted to
the study What is Literature?81 Only through the mediation of German Roman
ists (Weinrich, Jauss) was its importance recognized in Germany, even though
the socially critical element was retained only in the watered-down form of
literature's socially constructive force. For Sartre, addressing the reader was
something much more concrete, namely an emancipatory pact between autho
and the respective progressive segment of recipients. Whereas in the 17th centur
the leading reader stratum was a parasitic social group urging the author
confirm its belief in the permanence of its social order, the rise of the initiall
unpolitical bourgeosie in the 18th century gave to the homme de lettres for th
first time an opportunity to emancipate himself from his public. The author
raised himself to guardian of that which still waited to be realized, interpretin
his work, thus, as a force for changing society. No matter how abstract this
address remained, it did evolve from the unreflected interests of a rising class
moreover, it encompassed a concrete addressee. In contrast, the situation in t
19th century, after the bourgeoisie had established itself, saw the writer onc
again in the service of a class expecting ideological legitimation of the social
status quo. He had to surrender or write against his public. In the latter case,
79. Habermas, "Bewusstmachende oder rettende Kritik," p. 207.

80. Benjamin, "Theses," p. 265.
81. Cf. Sartre, What is Literature? (New York, 1965).
he lost his concrete addressee, since the proletariat had not ye

as a literary partner. Sartre concurs with Benjamin: analyses o
between author and public-meaning analyses of the function
in social praxis. After World War II Sartre confronted the dil
Benjamin in The Author as Producer: intellectuals, usually of
are by conviction lefists although they share no more than p
with the proletarian masses. How can the proletariat reach th
"One cannot write without a public and without a myth-with
lic which historical circumstances have made, without a cert
ture which depends to a very great extent upon the demand
If a writer tries to write for everyone, he must necessarily
because he wants to satisfy different and diverging needs. On
he focuses on one particular group, then he conceals the inter
For Sartre, then, "actual literature can only realize its full e
society."83 For in classless society the interests and needs of
recipients are identical. The road to that goal leads throu
reading public: "The fate of literature is bound up with that
class."84 Thus, the possibility of access becomes the decis
quering the apparatus which can reach the masses. "[The mas
real resources at our disposal for conquering the virtual pub
the radio, and the movies. . ... We must learn to speak in image
ideas of our books into these new languages."85 Sartre is awa
of production are controlled by industrial capital or its State
possibility in subversion. Yet, he still clings to the traditional
ture-and here his analysis falls short of Benjamin's-and he co
primarily as tactical instruments.
VI
Obviously the debate on reception theory has not come to an end. The sign-
posts of those methodological schools participating in the discussion (Empiri-
cism, Formalism, Marxism) point in different directions. Their results, however,
converge at certain junctures. The fact that the catalog of questions and prob-
lems has been expanded in each camp indicates how important and productive
82. Ibid., p. 144.

83. Ibid., p. 150.
84. Ibid., p. 247.
85. Ibid., p. 262.
the on-going discussion can become. For example, Manfred Naumann addresse
at length the question of the role of the reader in his most recent work and
relied here on Herbert Dieckmann and Weinrich.86 And on the other side, Hans
Ulrich Gumbrecht expanded the formalistic approach by referring to theorems
of ideological criticism and sociology of knowledge.87 It would be a mistake t
present finally the obligatory catalog of problems to be solved which general
tends to be more restrictive than beneficial. We will only mention several of th
more important concerns of the present discussion. Having fulfilled its polemic
function, the rigid opposition between aesthetics of reception and representatio
which characterized the initial situation is now being resolved. It derived from a
unjustified reduction of the concept of literature. More important is the effor
to engage the dialectic of production and consumption. It is not enough t
devalue the problematization of the relationship between art and reality
"traditional" (Gumbrecht); similarly restrictive is a critique which rejects
priori an aesthetics of reception, as is the case with Critical Theory. Reception
studies can hardly be relegated to the position of an appendix for the capitali
market, as Warneken suggests when he writes: "Even when sociological studie
of reception intend a critical perspective, they put the cart before the horse by
commencing with and not going beyond the observation of the consumer."88
Nothing indicates that a critical audience sociology, even if it begins with the
consumer, must limit itself to describing artistic experiences and processes of
distribution and remain blind to the conditions of production. If, according t
Marx, production and consumption mediate each other, then it is the who
analysis rather than simply the initial step which decides the adequacy of the
procedure. Textual analysis and reception studies are not opposed to one anoth
er or separated by a gulf. By using Werther as an example Klaus R. Scherpe h
clearly proven this inner relationship.89 Contrasting objective textual structure
and subjective reactions, as Adorno does in his aesthetics, violates the dialectic
of production and consumption. Just as production mediates consumption-in
the area of supply, distribution and formation of attitudes in the recipient-s
does consumption mediate production: the reader's concretization transforms
model into a living work, and those needs of the public articulated in the recep
tion condition the direction and extent of literary production. Phenomen
86. Naumann, "Autor-Adressat-Leser," Weimarer Beitrage, 17:11 (1971), 163-169.

87. Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, "Soziologie und Rezeptionsisthetik: Ueber Gegenstand und
Chance interdisziplinirer Zusammenarbeit," in J. Kolbe, ed., Neue Ansichten einer kiinfti-
gen Germanistik (Munich, 1973), pp. 48-74.
88. Warneken, "Zur Kritik," p. 105.
89. Klaus R. Scherpe, Werther und Wertherwirkung (Bad Homburg, 1970).
logical reception aesthetics did not overlook this dialectical

interpreted it as and reduced it to an inner-literary question. I
mediation only on the level of reader attitudes and textual str
both conjoined in the concept of the expectation horizon. The
level, however, is repressed.
Reception theory, however, can hardly do without a sociolog
Bernhard Zimmerman convincingly postulates: "In contras
reception where the concept of public remains abstract and do
any sociological interest, a sociologically and historically based
tion questions the social structure of the literary public and exa
and formation of receptive attitudes in the framework of this s
by evaluating the knowledge it generates."90 Reconstructing the
attitudes we necessarily would have to take into account that u
tions created by the culture industry in advanced capitalism soc
and the ability to respond to literature do not regularly coincid
tant task falls to empirical research which it has not yet fulfilled
creating differentiated descriptive models. (Descriptions of prof
income groups in relation to geographical localization do not
quately precise picture of the interdependence between reader
groups.) Not until the literary needs and aesthetic competence
strata have been sufficiently studied will it be possible to formu
expectation horizon in a way that allows a sensible comparison t
the expectations and signals inherent in the work. Such a d
would also offset the preference for high literature (innovative
ent in reception aesthetics. But even this method will lead
conclusions only when the cultural system (together with its s
trolling needs and competence is considered from the outse
model. In that way the notion of participating in literary life
character. In this connection, special attention should be paid t
from theory to actual case studies emerging since 1971 (rec
documentations about individual works, authors and period
probably will not only fill out the prevailing theorems but als
We may expect conclusions from investigations which intro
approach into a broader context of communications theory
criticism.
Translated by Marc Silberman
90. Zimmerman, "Der Leser als Produzent: Zur Problematik der rezep
Methode," LILI, 15 (1974), 12-26.

Literary Translation

Caricato da

Informazioni sul documento

Copyright

Formati disponibili

Condividi questo documento

Condividi o incorpora il documento

Opzioni di condivisione

Hai trovato utile questo documento?

Questo contenuto è inappropriato?

Copyright:

Formati disponibili

Literary Translation

Caricato da

Copyright:

Formati disponibili

Introduction to Reception Aesthetics

Author(s): Peter Uwe Hohendahl and Marc Silberman

by Peter Uwe Hohendahl*

The judgment of history that will one day

whether of a sociological or of a psychological nature, were accepted as usefu

2. Karl Robert Mandelkow, "Probleme der Wirkungsgeschichte," Jabrbucb fiir Internati

The untouchable postulate of historicism that the present can be e

7. Adorno, Aesthetische Theorie, Gesammelte Schriften, 7 (Frankfurt am Main, 1970

artistic experiences. Adorno's resistance is closely tied to his concept of the

Benjamin's attempt to place reception at the center of artistic criticism an

11. Cf. Mandelkow, "Probleme,' 73f.

14. Ibid., p. 332.

of concretizations related to these objects ("articles, essays, dis

19. Ibid., p. 349.

the difference between an educated and a mass public23 and made

of indeterminacy. Just as it was possible only in retrospect to recognize the

Here we touch on a further perspective: aesthetics of reception as an answer

27. Gbtz Wienold, "Textverarbeitung: Ueberlegungen zu einer Kategorienbildung in einer

The historical relevance of literature is not based on an organization o

tradition of Lukics. The model postulates a definition of historicity where

Empirical reception studies are a product of late 19th-century bourgeois

29. Jauss, "Literary History," 9.

work. Two directions must be differentiated. The literary system, determined

31. Gustave Lanson, "L'histoire litteraire et la sociologie," Revue de Metaphysique et

(1) a study of the reading habits of different group

Some of those categories suggested by Escarpit could indeed be further

32. Wienold, "Empirie in der Erforschung literarischer Kommunikation," in J. Ihwe, ed.,

Nevertheless, Schiicking certainly would agree with Wienold's objection to th

33. Schuicking, The Sociology of Literary Taste (Chicago, 1966), p. 82.

explaining such changes. If the typical advocate of taste is defin

34. Hans Norbert Fiigen, Die Hauptrichtungen der Literatursoziologie und

participating in literary life.35 In this kind of empirical literary sociology the

Intensified methodological reflection has generated empirical reception

39. Wienold, "Textverarbeitung," p. 97.

the ensemble of such communicative acts (translations, discussions, reviews,

41. Wienold, "Textverarbeitung," p. 115.

of literary life, and that his perceptions and assumptions act up

identify popular literature as a special case of canonization. However, it

The present state of empirico-analytical reception research can be adequately

42. Ibzd., p. 132.

43a. Weimann, "Gegenwart," p. 340f.

(Escarpit, Hofstitter). East German scholars seem to find empiri

46. Warneken, "Zur Kritik der positivistischen Literatursoziologie," in Literaturwiss

shaping motivations can be [incorporatedj into socially desirable and necessary

opinion.''52 In order to measure the correspondance of intended textual mean-

49. Walter, "Lesemotivation," p. 276.

53. Ibid., 71.

According to Lukaics, as long as no independent socialist culture existed, only

structural approaches in the West. The provocation lay in Jauss' claim

58. Jauss, Literaturgeschichte, p. 162.

permanently shifting horizon, does not face a past devoid of

65. Ibid., 74.

product. Here positivistic empiricism falls behind the goal of historiography

68. Marx, The Grundrisse, p. 24f.

We cannot ignore the question as to why Walter Benjamin's philosophy of

demonstrated that they cannot be integrated into the formulations of Critical

72. Jurgen Habermas, "Bewusstmachende oder rettende Kritik-die Aktualitiit Walter

into a permanent critical dialogue with itself by extending its work to

75. Habermas, "Bewusstmachende oder rettende Kritik," p. 199.

intermittently from above-cannot be easily assimilated into the materiali

79. Habermas, "Bewusstmachende oder rettende Kritik," p. 207.

he lost his concrete addressee, since the proletariat had not ye

82. Ibid., p. 144.

86. Naumann, "Autor-Adressat-Leser," Weimarer Beitrage, 17:11 (1971), 163-169.