Rezeptionsästhetik

Rezeptionsästhetik, see reception theory.

Rezeptionsästhetik, term used for the study of the evaluation of a work of literature, or of art, by its ‘recipient’. Proceeding from premisses established by H. R. Jauß (Literaturgeschichte als Provokation, 1970) and W. Iser (Der implizite Leser. Kommunikationsformen des Romans von Bunyan bis Beckett, 1972), it aims at an assessment of socio-political factors underlying the judgement of the recipient. Neither the author's imagined reader, nor individual, subjective taste is the subject of enquiry, but the integration of a literary work and its reader into the objective historical process, the evaluation of which it is designed to promote. Rezeptionsästhetik has proved fruitful especially in respect of periods that yield detailed documentation bringing out a specific social structure, in the context of which literary work assumes renewed actuality. It has stimulated a reassessment of Trivialliteratur, and it has served critics in their assessment of the reception of contemporary works of literature by other critics representing different societies.