Reception Theory Flashcards
What does ‘Text/Context’ imply?
Every text invokes social, historical, cultural, and literary systems that exist outside the text.
How does a text interact with its readers according to ‘Text/Reader’?
The text interacts not only with its sociocultural environment but also, and in equal measure, with its readers.
Define Reception Study.
It analyses how readers and audiences interpret and use texts.
What does Reception Theory explore?
It explores the nature of interpretation, language, and meaning itself.
Who is Wolfgang Iser?
A central theorist of reception theory who believes meaning results from an interaction between text and reader.
What is the ‘Horizon of Expectation’ according to Hans Robert Jauss?
It is the ongoing negotiation between a reader’s personal context and the expectations formed by literary conventions.
What does the mutual illumination of past and present refer to?
The past and present inform each other, offering new insights into the meaning of the text.
What does Classical Reception state about meaning?
Meaning is realized at reception, not fixed at creation.
Fill in the blank: Reception as a _______ involves a dialogue across time and cultural divides.
[conversation]
What does Dialogic Reception Studies emphasize?
It emphasizes difference and continuity through the conversation between ancient texts and later readers.
What is the focus of studying the legacy of classical literature?
It switches focus from what a text means to what a text does.
List Porter’s Eight Propositions.
- ‘Classical Antiquity’ is not consistently classical.
- No inherent classical properties.
- The logic of classicism is incoherent.
- Classicism is a habitus and a structure of feeling.
- ‘Feeling Classical’ is linked to ‘sounding’ classical.
- Classicism is often ideological.
- Classicism involves identifying with the past in the future perfect.
- Classicism is mediated through identification.
What does Porter summarize about the nature of classicism?
Classicism embodies tensions, relates to sensory experiences, is bound up with ideology and authority, and is always encountered indirectly.
