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Introduction

Introduction Comparative Critical Studies 3, 3, pp. 191–198 © BCLA 2006 The study of reception has been one of the dominant modes of literary inquiry in the last thirty-five years, from the first ground-breaking work by the Constance School, that is Hans-Robert Jauß and Wolfgang Iser and their colleagues at the new University at Constance. This had a political urgency about it in post-war Germany which still has resonance: the claims of great literature and pure poetry and national cultural traditions had been hijacked by the National Socialists, calling in question for a post-war generation the whole apparatus of literary history and criticism, and the roster of great names and works before whom one must automatically genuflect. Outside Germany this recoil was less marked, but nevertheless chimed with growing interest in works not labelled ‘classic’ or ‘great’, with minor or mixed or unidentifiable genres, with women’s writing (by definition excluded from the rolls of ‘past greatness’), with exotic, minority or ‘multi-cultural’ writing, and with new media. The Constance School met the crisis with an approach through the successive receptions of new work, that is through an objective study of what readers had said about new work, without prior evaluation http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Comparative Critical Studies Edinburgh University Press

Introduction

Shaffer, Elinor
Comparative Critical Studies , Volume 3 (3): 191 – Oct 1, 2006
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Publisher
Edinburgh University Press
Copyright
© Edinburgh University Press
ISSN
1744-1854
eISSN
1750-0109
DOI
10.3366/ccs.2006.3.3.191
Publisher site
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Abstract

Comparative Critical Studies 3, 3, pp. 191–198 © BCLA 2006 The study of reception has been one of the dominant modes of literary inquiry in the last thirty-five years, from the first ground-breaking work by the Constance School, that is Hans-Robert Jauß and Wolfgang Iser and their colleagues at the new University at Constance. This had a political urgency about it in post-war Germany which still has resonance: the claims of great literature and pure poetry and national cultural traditions had been hijacked by the National Socialists, calling in question for a post-war generation the whole apparatus of literary history and criticism, and the roster of great names and works before whom one must automatically genuflect. Outside Germany this recoil was less marked, but nevertheless chimed with growing interest in works not labelled ‘classic’ or ‘great’, with minor or mixed or unidentifiable genres, with women’s writing (by definition excluded from the rolls of ‘past greatness’), with exotic, minority or ‘multi-cultural’ writing, and with new media. The Constance School met the crisis with an approach through the successive receptions of new work, that is through an objective study of what readers had said about new work, without prior evaluation

Journal

Comparative Critical Studies – Edinburgh University Press

Published: Oct 1, 2006

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