The Role of the Reader and the Changing Functions of Literature: Reception Aesthetics, Literary Anthropology, Funktionsgeschichte

A Report on the C-E Translation of Running Like Wind (Excerpts) Based on Reception Aesthetics

“…Children's literature, as a special literature, needs to be deeply studied and spread. Hans Robert Jauss and Wolfgang Iser (Fluck, 2002),…”

“In Reality Every Reader Is, While He Is Reading, the Reader of His Own Self”: Reconsidering the Importance of Narrative and Savoir Littéraire for Masculinity Studies

“…59–60).“[H]ighly achieved literary writing,” to come back to Ermarth, can free readers from habitual modes of perception, is characterized by its ability to defamiliarize and alienate, and subverts “the illusions on which our perception is based” by opening up “an unexpected view of the object” as well as of the reading subject: “every reader is, while he is reading, the reader of his own self” (Proust, 1996/1927, 273). By thus drawing “attention to the illusory nature of conventional modes of perception” (Iser 1966, 367, quoted in and translated by Fluck 2002, 256), literary texts generate acts of the imagination which involve ideation ( Vorstellung ) instead of perception ( Wahrnehmung ). Conceptualizing the act of reading as an act of imagining stresses the potential of the fictional text “to articulate something that is still unformulated” (Fluck 2002, 257) and to give “a determinate shape to imaginary elements, ranging from fantasy to affective dimensions, by linking these elements with a semblance of the real” (Fluck 2002, 261).…”

“…By thus drawing “attention to the illusory nature of conventional modes of perception” (Iser 1966, 367, quoted in and translated by Fluck 2002, 256), literary texts generate acts of the imagination which involve ideation ( Vorstellung ) instead of perception ( Wahrnehmung ). Conceptualizing the act of reading as an act of imagining stresses the potential of the fictional text “to articulate something that is still unformulated” (Fluck 2002, 257) and to give “a determinate shape to imaginary elements, ranging from fantasy to affective dimensions, by linking these elements with a semblance of the real” (Fluck 2002, 261). The aesthetic experience can thereby be understood as “a state ‘in-between’ in which, as a result of the doubling structure of fictionality, we are […] ‘both ourselves and someone else at the same time’” (Fluck 2002, 263).…”

“…Conceptualizing the act of reading as an act of imagining stresses the potential of the fictional text “to articulate something that is still unformulated” (Fluck 2002, 257) and to give “a determinate shape to imaginary elements, ranging from fantasy to affective dimensions, by linking these elements with a semblance of the real” (Fluck 2002, 261). The aesthetic experience can thereby be understood as “a state ‘in-between’ in which, as a result of the doubling structure of fictionality, we are […] ‘both ourselves and someone else at the same time’” (Fluck 2002, 263). Thus, readers “perpetually ‘stage’ themselves” (Thomas 2008, 626), fashion new identities, imagine new worlds, and create other, more expressive versions of themselves and of their masculinity; versions of themselves which are not simple cases of self-aggrandizements “through wish-fulfilment but an extension of [their] […] own interiority over a whole (made-up) world” (Fluck 2002, 263–64); and this made-up world belongs to literature, is the product of language, and consists of narrative.…”

“…The aesthetic experience can thereby be understood as “a state ‘in-between’ in which, as a result of the doubling structure of fictionality, we are […] ‘both ourselves and someone else at the same time’” (Fluck 2002, 263). Thus, readers “perpetually ‘stage’ themselves” (Thomas 2008, 626), fashion new identities, imagine new worlds, and create other, more expressive versions of themselves and of their masculinity; versions of themselves which are not simple cases of self-aggrandizements “through wish-fulfilment but an extension of [their] […] own interiority over a whole (made-up) world” (Fluck 2002, 263–64); and this made-up world belongs to literature, is the product of language, and consists of narrative.…”