Hermeneutics, Reception Aesthetics and Reader Response Criticism

Hermeneutics, Reception Aesthetics and Reader Response Criticism

China attached great importance to the interpretation and annotation of classics in ancient times, and made rich interpretations of Confucian classics, Taoist classics and Buddhist classics. Lu Jiuyuan's theory of "Six Classics Note Me, I Note Six Classics" also reflects the different paths of China's hermeneutics. China's classical interpretation emphasizes the acceptance of literature and readers' reaction, such as Confucius' theory of "complaining about enjoying the scenery". Although this kind of explanation activity has been done a lot, the systematic summary is not as comprehensive as that of modern western countries. In the west, hermeneutics used to be an ancient discipline to explain the meaning of texts, especially the Bible. It is named after Hellmers, the history of God belief in Greek mythology. In modern times, after the development of German philosophers such as schleiermacher and Dilthey, it has become a philosophical thought that pays attention to "understanding". However, modern hermeneutics has not surpassed the influence of objective methods of natural science and pursued the restoration and consistency of the original meaning, so it is regarded as methodological hermeneutics. Modern hermeneutics transformed traditional hermeneutics into ontological hermeneutics, and its founders Heidegger and Gadamer both benefited from Husserl's phenomenology.

The rapid development of natural science and industrial civilization threatens the legitimacy of modern philosophy whose basic task is to explore how to understand, and also shakes people's understanding of cultural traditions. The crisis of European philosophy and ideological culture gave birth to Husserl's phenomenological thought. Phenomenology tries to reunify the subject and object of natural science division and observe the world from the perspective of the unity of subject and object. Heidegger inherited the phenomenological method, but rejected Husserl's superior transcendental subject and turned to "existence". This special "existence" of human beings is "being in the world", and it is bound to be with the world and others. The relationship between "existence" and the world is not the relationship between master and servant or object, but the relationship between dialogue and listening, so "understanding" is the inherent impulse of "existence" to constantly surpass itself from birth to death. Heidegger's thought makes "understanding" not just a kind of psychological consciousness, but the most essential content, which is historic and lives in language. Then, the understanding of works of art is not to discover, but to expose the truth of works of art and language.

Gadamer continued to develop along this line of thinking. He completely abandoned the traditional view of truth attached to scientific understanding, regarded "understanding" as the way of truth occurrence, and artistic understanding activity was a typical truth occurrence style, thus emphasizing the historicity of understanding and the composition of language. Man is the subject of history, and so are works of art condensed in cultural traditions. Therefore, the relationship between man and works of art is not the relationship between subject and object, but the relationship between dialogue and understanding between two subjects. People's understanding of works of art is considered as the fundamental premise of the existence of works. Both works of art and interpreters have different historical horizons, and their meeting forms a fusion of horizons, that is, a new horizon and a new interpretation significance.

Gadamer's hermeneutics holds that the meaning of works of art is open and constantly updated, which has been sharply criticized by Hirsch, a literary theorist from the United States. Hirsch can't tolerate the relativism attitude of hermeneutics that separates the work from the author's original intention, which makes the interpretation lose its standard of measurement. From the standpoint of "defending the author", he pointed out that the most fundamental meaning of the text comes from the author. Therefore, Hirsch distinguishes between "meaning" and "meaning" of artistic texts. The former refers to the author's intention and is fixed. And "meaning" is the product of the connection between text meaning and other things, which is related to historical conditions and specific readers and is variable.

In the development of modern hermeneutics, there are also some influential views of French Rico and American margolis. The novelty of Rico's hermeneutics is that it combines the achievements of structuralism, psychoanalysis, daily philosophy of language and religious philosophy, trying to expand hermeneutics from the perspective of linguistic analysis. Symbolic analysis and text theory are its core contents, and it is also Ricoh's development of modern hermeneutics in methodology and epistemology.

Modern hermeneutics has greatly influenced the reception aesthetics which rose in Germany in 1960s. Hans Robert Jauss and Ethel are the main representatives of reception aesthetics. They try to reintroduce the historical dimension or the historicity of understanding into formal literary studies. Hans Robert Jauss blew the horn of reception aesthetics with the article "The Challenge of Literary History to Literary Theory", and thought that if we look at literature from the perspective of reception aesthetics, the two separate contents of literary research will be reconnected. Hans Robert Jauss absorbed the viewpoints of "horizon fusion" and "effective history" of hermeneutics, and thought that literary meaning could not be expected from vulgar empirical and historical research, nor could it be simply enclosed in the formal structure of the text, because meaning occurred in the dialogue between the text and historical interpreters. He also accepted Marx's concepts of production and consumption, Habermas's ideal communication theory and other sociological theories, and combined reader acceptance with the "general history" of society. Of course, as Eagleton questioned, the "general history" of reception aesthetics is actually abstract, which is different from the concrete social history full of struggles and games. Ethel, another representative of reception aesthetics, insisted on examining literary reading with phenomenological methods. Therefore, literary works are inseparable from readers, and literary works are always formed dynamically during reading. The two ends of a literary work are respectively connected with the text as an artistic pole and the reader as an aesthetic pole. In Call Structure, Ethel pointed out that the text always contains hidden readers, and readers' reading is needed to fill the gaps, connect the gaps and establish new horizons. Moreover, valuable texts will inevitably question readers' inherent concepts, ways of thinking and artistic experience. In the challenge of the text, readers can get rid of the control of daily life and be liberated.

Reception aesthetics crossed the Atlantic and formed a school of "reader response criticism" in the United States, among which Fisher, Culler and Holland had the greatest influence. Fisher tries to deny readers' confidence in their own perception by subverting the meaning of the text, thus explaining the uncertainty of meaning. His famous saying is "meaning is an event" and "reading is an activity and what you are doing". Fisher admits that readers are restricted by internalized language, social communication rules and semantic knowledge, but there is no absolute standard for reading. Critical practice is to study the reader's reaction mode to the text during reading. Caleb is not as extreme as a fish, but pays more attention to the potential ability of readers, that is, the "literary ability" or "habit system" of literary acceptance. It is through the replacement of the old habit system by the new habit system that literature realizes the evolution of literature. Norman Holland brought readers' reaction criticism into the framework of psychoanalysis. In this paper, the relationship between readers and texts is the relationship between fantasy and self-defense. Reading works can transform readers' potential desires into socially acceptable and reasonable content, so readers can release and get happiness from reading works. The process of reading is not a passive interpretation of the text, but a process of communication between the author and the reader through the text.

From the modern development of hermeneutics to reception aesthetics, and then to readers' reaction to criticism, we can find a consistent clue that criticism or theory is biased towards readers and interpreters in the author, text and reader system. On the basis of attaching importance to language texts, they have established new relations among the meaning of texts, the subject of interpretation and human experience.

[Selected readings of original classics]

Huan Gong studied after class, and the class was even. He loosened his spine and chiseled it up. He asked Huan Gong: "Do you dare to ask your readers what evil they are talking about?" Gong said, "The words of saints are also true." Say, "Do saints care?" Gong said, "I'm dead." Yue: "However, if you were a scholar, the scum of the ancients would have been married!" Huan Gong said, "I'm studying, and it's my turn to discuss! Just say it, or you will die if you don't say it! " Lunping said: "I also regard it as a matter of ministers: Lunping, though willing, is not solid, though suffering from illness, does not advance;" If you are not sick, take it from your hand and put it in your heart. You can't talk, but there are a few things in it. I can't compare with my son, and my son can't be influenced by me, so I am 70 years old. The ancients died before they could carry on the family line, but your reader, the scum of the ancients, was married! "

—— Guo Qingfan. Collected works of Zhuangzi [M]. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1982: 490-49 1.

There are words, paper and ink in the scriptures, where is it effective? An effective person has feelings for things because he holds the scriptures. Try putting a scroll on the box, and no one will accept it. Can it work?

Guo Ming. Interpretation of Jing Ke [M]. Fahaiben Jinan: Qilu Bookstore, 198 1: 64.

The pantheon of art is not an eternal existence presented to pure aesthetic consciousness, but a spiritual activity accumulated and gathered in history. Even aesthetic experience is a way to understand oneself, but all understanding itself is realized on other things understood here, including the unity and identity of this other thing. As long as we see a work of art in the world and a world in a work of art, then this other thing will not always be a strange universe in which we suddenly revel. Needless to say, we have learned to know ourselves in other things. In other words, we abolished the discontinuity and certainty of experience in the continuity of our existence. Therefore, it is meaningful for us to gain such a foothold in front of beauty and art, which is not claimed to be directness, but a reference to directness, instantaneous perfection and the "experience" meaning in line with human historical reality. In view of the fact that the requirement of human existence is not stubborn in the continuity and unity of self-knowledge, artistic experience cannot be pushed into unrestricted aesthetic consciousness.

……

In this paper, hermeneutics is the classic subject that we should learn to understand art. If our discussion is correct, then the real problem of hermeneutics is completely different from what people see. The real problem of hermeneutics is the same direction as our criticism of aesthetic consciousness moving aesthetic problems into it. Indeed, hermeneutics must be understood so widely that it includes the whole art field and its artistic problems. Every work of art-not just literary works-must be understood like every article that is understood differently, and this understanding should be tenable. Therefore, the consciousness of hermeneutics has gained a broad field beyond the scope of aesthetic consciousness. Aesthetics must appear in hermeneutics, which not only shows the fields involved in aesthetic problems, but also points out that hermeneutics is particularly suitable for aesthetics in content, which means that hermeneutics must be stipulated in this way as a whole, so that it can treat artistic experience correctly. Understanding must be regarded as an inseparable part of meaningful events. In this understanding, all the expressed meanings-the meaning of art and all the meanings handed down from the past-can be formed and realized.

Gadamer Truth and method [M]. Wesley Wang. Shenyang: Liaoning People's Publishing House,1987:139-140.

In traditional hermeneutics, when critics deliberately set aside the original author, they usurped the author's own position. Although this is not wrong, it has led to some confusion in our current theory. There used to be only one author, but now there are many, and everyone has as much authority as the next one. To exclude the original author from the meaning decider is to reject the only interesting standard principle that can give the interpretation validity. On the other hand, there may not be a real ideal to dominate the standards expounded in this paper. This situation will follow if we insist on all kinds of views that deviate from the author. Because if the meaning of this article is not the author's, then an explanation cannot be consistent with this meaning of this article, even if this article has no definite or determinable meaning. If a theorist wants to save the ideal of effectiveness, he must save the author. In the current specific circumstances, his first task will be to show that the arguments against the author are problematic and fragile.

……

If there is any meaning in the analysis of this chapter, it is that meaning is a question of consciousness, not a physical symbol or thing. Secondly, consciousness is a personal matter. In the interpretation of this article, the individuals involved are the author and the reader. The meaning experienced by readers belongs not only to the author, but also to the reader. When the statement on this issue may offend our deep-rooted understanding that language has its own independent meaning, it never doubts the power of language. On the contrary, it is taken for granted that all the meanings communicated through this article are bound by language to some extent, and the meaning of this article cannot exceed the possibility and control of expressing the linguistic meaning of this article. What is denied here is that language symbols can explain their meaning in some way-this is a mysterious idea that has never been convincingly defended.

-Hirsch. Defend the author [M]// Zhu Liyuan et al. "The Classic Texts of Western Aesthetics in the 20th Century: Volume III". Shanghai: Fudan University Press, 2001:706,721.

Now, we understand why we need two languages. We need a language that speaks in size and quantity, an accurate, consistent and verifiable language. This is the language of science. With this language, we have formed a model about reality, which can be easily expressed by our logic. It is similar to our truth, so it can be said that it is similar to ourselves. However, this language is not limited or offset by poetic language, which leads us to a simple connection with things-the connection between people and things, the connection between people's rule, exploration and control.

In this sense, poetry maintains science by preventing this blind belief in controllable things. As far as science itself is concerned, poetry maintains an ideal of truth. According to this ideal, what is displayed is not dominated by us, nor can we control it, but is still magical and natural. Then, language may be a ceremony of praise and singing. However, at this time, the poet will inevitably talk about poetry instead of me. As I said, philosophers don't pretend to be poets. He analyzes and creates understanding. In this passage, creative understanding is the threshold to poetry. Once this threshold is reached, the philosopher pays tribute to the poet who welcomes him-and then says nothing more.

Paul Ricoeur. The Power of Speech: Science and Poetry [M]//. Zhu Liyuan et al. Classical Texts of Western Aesthetics in the 20th Century: Volume III. Zhu Guojun, translate it. Shanghai: Fudan University Press, 200 1: 650.

On the other hand, on the horizon of the first batch of reading materials, the aesthetic distance is still temporarily stopped for readers; Readers can use retrospective fables to perceive such a whole from behind the accidental phenomenon of the passing years; It unconsciously appears in accidental phenomena, and it belongs to a world that once existed, has become the past, and then was discovered. This is, of course, such a world: only when it denies the horizon of future happiness can it save the past. However, the limitation of Proust's cosmic function also determines the communicative function of his "reminiscence poem" (looking at the world from other people's eyes): it makes us realize that a world that is the same to everyone but different to the next person can appear in different images, and its other image can only reveal aesthetic experience from the perspective of recollection and can only indirectly create art.

The investigation so far shows that the aesthetic experience of production and acceptance has participated in the struggle to regain the cognitive function of art since the middle of the nineteenth century. This must be in contrast with Gadamer's criticism of "the abstraction of aesthetic consciousness"; Although this criticism may have hit the historical image of "aesthetic education" produced by Weimar in Germany, it has not seen the opposite process outlined by thick lines here. In this process, in the face of increasingly alienated social existence, aesthetic experience undertakes a task that has never been put forward to it in the history of art: to oppose the service language and degraded experience of "cultural industry" with the language critical function and creative function of aesthetic feeling, to face the diversification of social function and scientific world outlook, to protect the world experience in the eyes of others, and to protect a common vision-the best world view and integration that has disappeared.

Hans Robert Jauss. Aesthetics: Acceptance of Aesthetic Experience [M]// Liu Xiaofeng. Translation of reception aesthetics. Beijing: Sanlian Bookstore, 1989: 64-65.

The value of literary history based on reception aesthetics depends on its positive role in the continuous comprehensive application of the past through aesthetic experience. This requires accepting aesthetics. On the one hand, it consciously tries to establish a standard relative to objectivism in the history of positivism literature; On the other hand, contrary to the classical tradition, if we don't break the accepted literary standards, we need to make a critical revision. Obviously, reception aesthetics has begun to establish and form such a standard and a necessary restatement of literary history. From the acceptance history of a single work to the step of literary history, it will inevitably lead us to regard and describe the historical continuation of the work as the cohesion of the work in determining and proving literature. For us, the historical continuation of the work is meaningful only as the prehistory of the work's current experience.

Hans Robert Jauss. The Challenge of Literary History to Literary Theory [M]// Reception Aesthetics and Reception Theory. Translated by Zhou Ning and Jin. Shenyang: Liaoning People's Publishing House, 1987: 25.

Readers are constantly forced to think about various options, because only by outlining the possibilities that the characters have not considered can we avoid repeating the definite and chaotic positions of the characters in the works. When readers discover these choices, their judgment scope expands, and they are constantly invited to test and evaluate their insights, which is the result of the expansion of the world shown to readers. The aesthetic appeal of this technique lies in that the novel gives readers some freedom, but it also forces readers to produce specific reactions-often imperceptibly-instead of formulating those reactions. Because the work refuses to involve the reader in the illusory reality of the novel and keeps the reader at a variable distance from the events, the work makes the reader mistakenly think that he can judge the progress of the work according to his own point of view. In doing so, he only needs to be in a position to urge him to make judgments; Moreover, the less burden the work gives to these judgments in advance, the stronger the aesthetic effect of the work.

There is no doubt that the author wants to guide readers to establish a critical attitude towards the described reality. At the same time, the author also asks the reader to choose one of the opinions given to him, or to develop his own opinions. This choice is not without certain dangers. If the reader accepts an attitude proposed by the author, he will naturally reject other attitudes. If this happens, in this special novel, people will have an increasingly strong impression that people should pay attention to themselves rather than the events described. Every angle has a certain narrowness. From this point of view, what readers see in his works will never be a compliment to themselves. However, if the reader changes his point of view in order to avoid this narrowness, he will have another experience, and he will find that his behavior is exactly the same as that of those two girls, who are constantly changing themselves in order to climb the social ladder. Similarly, although the reader's criticism of the two girls is well-founded, is there no reason to think that the creation of this novel is a way to turn the reader's criticism of social opportunism into his own criticism? This is not specifically mentioned in the work, but this happens from time to time. In this way, readers find that the object of criticism is not society, but themselves.

Wolfgang Ezelle. Reader: the component of realistic novels [M]// Liu Xiaofeng. Translation of Reception Aesthetics. Beijing: Sanlian Bookstore, 1989: 273-274.

Of course, the key word is experience. According to Wardhoe, reading (in a general sense) is a process of getting rid of the weeds and keeping the seeds. "The reader is required to get meaning from the pages in front of him." (Page 139) For me, reading (in a general sense) is an event, and every part of it can't be abandoned. In the process of this event, the deep structure is very important for the concretization (or realization) of meaning, but it can't replace other functions, because we don't just understand it from the deep structure, but from the relationship between the surface structure and the continuous investigation of the surface structure.

All this finally goes back to the previous question: Who are the readers? Obviously, in my analysis method, this reader is a person with such a thinking ability, an ideal or idealized reader, similar to what Wardhoe called a "mature reader" or what Milton called a "suitable reader". Or in my terminology, this kind of reader is a knowledgeable reader. They must meet the following requirements: (1) Proficient in the language used to speak their works; (2) Fully grasp the "semantic knowledge necessary for maturity" ... the listener in the process of understanding, including the possibility of phrase collocation, idioms, specialties and jargon in other dialects (that is, the experience as a language user and as a language interpreter); (3) literary ability. In other words, as a reader, he has rich experience in the process of internalizing the characteristics of literary activities, including the most local techniques (metaphors and other techniques) and various styles. If this theory is accepted, then some issues that other critics pay attention to-style, genre, standardization, knowledge background, etc. -will inevitably be redefined in the sense of potential and possible reactions. Starting from this, it is helpful to understand the significance and value of the concept of "epic", as well as the use of old sayings that readers expect or other such problems.

Stanley Fish. Literature among Readers: Perceptual Stylistics [M]// Reader Response Criticism: Theory and Practice. Translated by Wen Chuan. Beijing: China Social Sciences Press,1998:164-165.