Geistesgeschichte -Are you telling me “God Bless You” or a literary term?

Here is the definition Dr. Jerz was so kind to send me.

When I volunteered to do this presentation I was expecting to find it a little bit more information when I entered “Reception Theory” into the box on Google’s site. Then I read one very confusing article on it. It deals with the finding of the practice of reception theory and the men who were responsible. Hans Robert Jauss, with his University of Constance colleagues Manfred Fuhrmann and Wolfgang Iser. html I think it was confusing for me because of the sprinkling of a few German words to explain the theory. Since I am unfamiliar with German, than this article left me in a bit of a bind.

I tweaked my search a little bit to include reader response and reception theory and I happened upon a clear cut easy to understand “English for Dummies” blatant article. Basically the article found on the Arts and Culture network website tells us how that it is the readers job to interpret the text. That without the reader the text is nothing. Sort of similar to Brendan’s presentation on Monday.

All of us come from different backgrounds so therefore our interpretations of a text should be different. And it is because of Reception theory that allows us to do so. It is basically like our favorite teacher growing up as a child that coddled us and told us there are never any wrong answers.

It is this type of way of approaching texts that allows authors such as Shakespeare and Chaucer to be so relevant to today. If we didn’t try and tweak and fit a text to fit our needs the text would probably be stale and be left in the dust forever.

Reception theory as whole puts a subjective slant on an objective text. By being subjective the reader colors the text to fit their expectations. The text becomes like an inkblot in their mind’s eye. They will see the text one way because they believe they want to see it that one way and no way else.

To be slightly off topic it is sort of how urban legends are born. For example everyone probably has heard about the “hanging munchin/electrician” in Wizard of Oz. We look for it and the minute we see something that may resemble it than our mind fills in the blanks for us and we believe it to be true. Another example is from the Lion King, when Simba lays down on the cliff and seeds and grass float into the air and supposedly spell out the word SEX. We have been told over and over how it is “supposed” to mean.

So when it comes time for us to interpret it for ourselves we stumble over our feet. We get lost and confused. But the important thing to remember is, if you do stumble, you have to get up, dust yourself off and try again.