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8/20/2019 The Journal of Religion Volume 65 Issue 3 1985 [Doi 10.2307%2F1203012] Review by- Gary Comstock -- Toward …
1/3
Toward an Aesthetic of Reception by Hans Robert Jauss; Timothy BahtiReview by: Gary ComstockThe Journal of Religion, Vol. 65, No. 3 (Jul., 1985), pp. 445-446Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1203012 .
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8/20/2019 The Journal of Religion Volume 65 Issue 3 1985 [Doi 10.2307%2F1203012] Review by- Gary Comstock -- Toward …
2/3
Book
Reviews
JAUSS,
HANS
ROBERT. Toward an
Aesthetic
of
Reception.
Translated
by
TIMOTHY
BAHTI,
with
an introduction
by
PAUL
DE
MAN.
Minneapolis:
University
of
Minnesota
Press,
1982.
xxix +
231
pp.
$22.50
(cloth);
$8.95
(paper).
This
volume
presents
five
essays
by
the
reception-aesthetic
theorist,
Hans
Robert
Jauss.
The
first
essay Literary History
as
a
Challenge
to
Literary
Theory
originally appeared
(in
a
slightly
different
version)
in
one of
the
first
numbers
of
the
influential
journal
New
Literary
History.
Jauss's
piece
might
well
be
considered the initial
statement of that
journal.
His
thesis,
that
literary
history
must
become
a
primary
concern of
every
literary theory,
was indeed a
challenge
(Provokation)
to the
modern
critical
academy.
In
the
pastJauss's
work
has been
overshadowed
in
this
country by
that of
his
colleague
Wolfgang
Iser. Iser's
functionalist
approach
to
literature
(see
The
Act
of
Reading)
ought
not to be confused with his associate's at the
University
of
Konstanz.
Jauss,
a
scholar
of French and
German
literature,
clearly repre-
sents
a
more
pragmatic
and
historical
emphasis
in
the
Rezeptionsdsthetik
chool.
Jauss
describes the act of
interpretation
as
a
dialectic
of
history
and
struc-
ture.
On the one
hand,
all
interpretation
arises
out
of
the
needs and
purposes
of some
audience;
it
is
inescapably
rooted in
history.
Texts are
only
meaningful
to the
extent
that
they
mean
something
for
someone.
But
Jauss's
view is
not the
skeptical
view
of
poststructuralists
who
believe
that
every
postulated
meaning ultimately
self-deconstructs.
Jauss
maintains
firmly
that
objective
descriptions
of
textual
meaning
are
both
possible
and
necessary.
He
takes pains to describe exactly what such interpretations refer to; they refer to
the
horizonal
structures of
reception
in
which a
specific
work
confronts a
specific
audience. In a
provocative
introduction
of his
own,
Paul de
Man
expresses
Jauss's position
in
the dense
technical
language
of
structuralism: A
syntagmatic
displacement
within a
synchronic
system
becomes in
its
reception
a
paradigmatic
condensation
within a
diachrony
(p.
xiv).
If
this
sentence
makes
sense
to
you, Jauss's
book-along
with de
Man's
preface--is
must
reading.
Jauss's
hermeneutic
promises
to
do
for
literary
texts
what
Gadamer's has
done
for
Scripture;
it
restores to
our critical
focus
the
centrality
of
readers'
prejudgments and expectations. In many waysJauss's and Gadamer's projects
are
complementary.
Yet
there is an
important
difference
that
must be
noted.
Jauss
criticizes
Gadamer's
notion of the
classical
as
excessively
abstract,
charging
that
Gadamer
removes the
classic
from the
vicissitudes of
history.
The classic
text,
then,
is
no
longer
a
text that
depends
on its
continued
inter-
pretation
for
its
intelligibility;
it
becomes a
timeless,
platonic
essence
or
entity.
On
Gadamer's
view,
charges
Jauss,
the classic
falls
out
of the
relationship
of
question
and
answer
that is
constitutive
of
all
historical
tradition
(p.
31).
Whether
Jauss's
criticism
is
valid or
not
remains to be
seen.
As
de Man
cor-
rectly
remarks,
Jauss
seems
to have
little
appreciation
for
the
dialectical
con-
cept
of
historical
preservation (Bewahrung) n both Heidegger and Gadamer.
But the
issue
demands the
attention
of
hermeneutic
theologians
who
have
drawn
on
Gadamer's
explication
of
the
classic.
This
book,
along
with
Jauss's
magnum
opus,
Aesthetic
Experience
and
Literary
Hermeneutics,
ows
the
seeds of an
exciting
new
hermeneutical
program
with
a
heavy
emphasis
on
historical and
social
scientific
inquiry.
It
should
be
extremely
helpful
in
overcoming
the
musty
old
oppositions
of
historical
445
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8/20/2019 The Journal of Religion Volume 65 Issue 3 1985 [Doi 10.2307%2F1203012] Review by- Gary Comstock -- Toward …
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The
Journal
of
Religion
he
Journal
of
Religion
versus
literary
riticism,
structuralist
ersus existentialist
eadings,
or
objective
versus
subjective
modes
of
interpretation.
An
important
collec-
tion that takes some impressive strides toward an aesthetic of reception.
GARY
COMSTOCK,
Iowa State
University.
WILLIAMS,
MICHAEL,
d.
Charismaand Sacred
Biography.
Journal
of the
Ameri-
can
Academy
of
Religion
Thematic
Studies,
vol.
48,
nos.
3,
4.
Chico,
Calif.:
Scholars
Press,
1982.
180
pp.
$19.50.
These
essays
under the
editorship
of Michael
A.
Williams,
a
member of
the
comparative
religion program faculty
at the
University
of
Washington,
are
the
offspringof two seminars at the
University
of
Washington
in 1977 and 1978.
The
first was
centered on
the
general
topic
of
sources of
authority
in
religious
traditions;
the
second was
concerned with one dimension of
religious
author-
ity
-
charisma
and focused on
the
relationship
between charismatic
indi-
viduals and the
biographies
written about them. Such
biographies
are
referred
to
by
most of the
authors
as sacred
biography,
one of the
types
of
religious
biography
identified
by
Frank
Reynolds
and Donald
Capps
in
The
Biographical
Process
Mouton,
1976),
a
book that served as a
catalyst
for the
1978
seminar.
Seven
of the
eight
essays
are
by
University
of
Washington
faculty.
They
include the
following topics:
charisma
and sacred
biography
(Charles
Keyes);
Athanasius'sbiographyof Saint Antony (Michael Williams); Luther and Zen
(Eugene
Webb);
John
and
Mary
Slocum,
founders of
the Indian
Shaker
Church
of
the
Pacific
Northwest
(Pamela
T.
Amoss); Samkaracarya
Karl
H.
Potter);
Shrimat
Pandurangashram
Swami,
a
nineteenth-century
Hindu
holy
man
(Frank
F.
Conlon);
and
two
twentieth-century
Thai
Buddhist
saints,
Khruiba
Siwichai
and
Acan Man
(Charles
Keyes).
Bruce
Lawrence of
Duke
University
centers on
Nizam
ad-dmn,
medieval Sufi
shaykh
of
the
Chishtiya
order of
North
India.
In
his
introductory
essay
on
charisma
and
sacred
biography,
Charles
Keyes
locates these
essays
in
the
intellectual
tradition
of
Max
Weber,
viewing
each
as
fundamentallyconcerned with the relation of charismaand authority.A major
issue
for
Keyes
is the
authority
of
the sacred
biography
itself. Is
the
biography
perceived
as
providing
an
authoritative
understanding
of the
sacred's
ntru-
sion
into the
world?
p.
17).
Various
factors
may
be
involved in
determining
whether a
biography
achieves this
status,
including
the
degree
to which
the
new
text is
compatible
with
existing
sacred
texts in
the
tradition,
and
whether
the
text has
official
or
unofficial
approval
of
the
leader's
successors,
or
other
ecclesiastical or
even
secular
authorities.
Virtually
all the
essays
demonstrate
that the
factual
accounting
of
the life
takes
a
back seat
to
the more
pressing
concern
for
establishing
the
charismatic
figure's
legitimacy.
Ironically,
this
usually means that the leaders'charismais not heightenedbut reducedas their
lives
and
achievements
are
assimilated to
existing
traditional
models
and
norms. In
effect,
the
sacred
biography
is an
integral part
of
the
routinization
of
charisma.
I
could not
begin
to
comment
on,
much
less
evaluate all
the
papers
in
this
volume in
the
space
allotted
me.
Suffice
it
to
say
that
those
by
Williams,
Webb, Amoss,
and
the
two
essays by
Keyes
have
the
most
methodological
versus
literary
riticism,
structuralist
ersus existentialist
eadings,
or
objective
versus
subjective
modes
of
interpretation.
An
important
collec-
tion that takes some impressive strides toward an aesthetic of reception.
GARY
COMSTOCK,
Iowa State
University.
WILLIAMS,
MICHAEL,
d.
Charismaand Sacred
Biography.
Journal
of the
Ameri-
can
Academy
of
Religion
Thematic
Studies,
vol.
48,
nos.
3,
4.
Chico,
Calif.:
Scholars
Press,
1982.
180
pp.
$19.50.
These
essays
under the
editorship
of Michael
A.
Williams,
a
member of
the
comparative
religion program faculty
at the
University
of
Washington,
are
the
offspringof two seminars at the
University
of
Washington
in 1977 and 1978.
The
first was
centered on
the
general
topic
of
sources of
authority
in
religious
traditions;
the
second was
concerned with one dimension of
religious
author-
ity
-
charisma
and focused on
the
relationship
between charismatic
indi-
viduals and the
biographies
written about them. Such
biographies
are
referred
to
by
most of the
authors
as sacred
biography,
one of the
types
of
religious
biography
identified
by
Frank
Reynolds
and Donald
Capps
in
The
Biographical
Process
Mouton,
1976),
a
book that served as a
catalyst
for the
1978
seminar.
Seven
of the
eight
essays
are
by
University
of
Washington
faculty.
They
include the
following topics:
charisma
and sacred
biography
(Charles
Keyes);
Athanasius'sbiographyof Saint Antony (Michael Williams); Luther and Zen
(Eugene
Webb);
John
and
Mary
Slocum,
founders of
the Indian
Shaker
Church
of
the
Pacific
Northwest
(Pamela
T.
Amoss); Samkaracarya
Karl
H.
Potter);
Shrimat
Pandurangashram
Swami,
a
nineteenth-century
Hindu
holy
man
(Frank
F.
Conlon);
and
two
twentieth-century
Thai
Buddhist
saints,
Khruiba
Siwichai
and
Acan Man
(Charles
Keyes).
Bruce
Lawrence of
Duke
University
centers on
Nizam
ad-dmn,
medieval Sufi
shaykh
of
the
Chishtiya
order of
North
India.
In
his
introductory
essay
on
charisma
and
sacred
biography,
Charles
Keyes
locates these
essays
in
the
intellectual
tradition
of
Max
Weber,
viewing
each
as
fundamentallyconcerned with the relation of charismaand authority.A major
issue
for
Keyes
is the
authority
of
the sacred
biography
itself. Is
the
biography
perceived
as
providing
an
authoritative
understanding
of the
sacred's
ntru-
sion
into the
world?
p.
17).
Various
factors
may
be
involved in
determining
whether a
biography
achieves this
status,
including
the
degree
to which
the
new
text is
compatible
with
existing
sacred
texts in
the
tradition,
and
whether
the
text has
official
or
unofficial
approval
of
the
leader's
successors,
or
other
ecclesiastical or
even
secular
authorities.
Virtually
all the
essays
demonstrate
that the
factual
accounting
of
the life
takes
a
back seat
to
the more
pressing
concern
for
establishing
the
charismatic
figure's
legitimacy.
Ironically,
this
usually means that the leaders'charismais not heightenedbut reducedas their
lives
and
achievements
are
assimilated to
existing
traditional
models
and
norms. In
effect,
the
sacred
biography
is an
integral part
of
the
routinization
of
charisma.
I
could not
begin
to
comment
on,
much
less
evaluate all
the
papers
in
this
volume in
the
space
allotted
me.
Suffice
it
to
say
that
those
by
Williams,
Webb, Amoss,
and
the
two
essays by
Keyes
have
the
most
methodological
44646
This content downloaded from 185.2.32.28 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 16:06:24 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp