Abstract
We have stated in our “Introduction to Literary Studies” (entry I.1) that what is considered literature, what the subject matter of literary studies is and how we analyse and interpret literature depends upon the methodological approaches we—as interpreters and readers—choose to apply. We have highlighted the interdependence, the dialectical interplay, and the semantic/semiotic oscillation which exists between authors, readers, texts and the world and in which meaning is generated. This communicative interplay has been foregrounded since the 1960s and 1970s in what was from various viewpoints and methodological angles called Rezeptionsästhetik and, in its special American variant, reader-response criticism and reader-response theory. To put the matter more simply, these approaches are here subsumed under the generic heading ‘reception theory.’
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
Select Bibliography
Achebe, Chinua. “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.” Massachusetts Review 18.4 (1977): 782–94.
Bleich, David. Subjective Criticism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978.
Culler, Jonathan. Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics, and the Study of Literature. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975.
Fish, Stanley. Is There a Text in this Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Truth and Method. 1960. London: Continuum, 1989.
Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. 1927. Trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. New York: Harper & Row, 1962.
Holland, Norman N. The Dynamics of Literary Response. New York: Norton, 1975.
Holland, Norman N. 5 Readers Reading. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975.
Iser, Wolfgang. The Act of Reading: A Theory ofAesthetic Response. 1976. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980.
Iser, Wolfgang. The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett. 1972. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974.
Jauß, Hans Robert. Literaturgeschichte als Provokation. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 1970.
Nünning, Ansgar. “Unreliable Narration zur Einführung: Grundzüge einer kognitiv-narratologischen Theorie und Analyse unglaubwürdigen Erzählens.” Unreliable Narration: Studien zur Theorie und Praxis unglaubwürdigen Erzählens in der englischsprachigen Erzählliteratur. Ed. Ansgar Nünning. Trier: WVT, 1998. 3–39.
Riffaterre, Michel. “Describing Poetic Structures: Two Approaches to Baudelaire’s ‘Les Chats.’” Tompkins 26–40.
Strasen, Sven. Rezeptionstheorien: Literatur-, sprach- und kulturwissenschaftliche Ansätze und kulturelle Modelle. Trier: WVT, 2008.
Tompkins, Jane, ed. Reader-Response Criticism: From Formalism to Poststructuralism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980.
Warning, Rainer, ed. Rezeptionsästhetik: Theorie und Praxis. Munich: Fink, 1975.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Middeke, M. (2012). Reception Theory. In: Middeke, M., Müller, T., Wald, C., Zapf, H. (eds) English and American Studies. J.B. Metzler, Stuttgart. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-476-00406-2_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-476-00406-2_7
Publisher Name: J.B. Metzler, Stuttgart
Print ISBN: 978-3-476-02306-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-476-00406-2
eBook Packages: J.B. Metzler Humanities (German Language)