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Limits and Tasks of Literary Hermeneutics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Hans Robert Jauss

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The foundation of methodical development of literary hermeneutics represents an altogether new proposition. There existed for centuries an old tradition of philological hermeneutics. It can glory in its venerable origins: the interpretation of ecclesiastical canonical writing, an art which ever since the period of Humanism has been erecting for itself a proud monument of re-edited and corrected texts and commentaries of ancient authors. It can also show just as impressive a result of historical interpretation of the texts of the world's literary past which had served the ideal of an “objective” and therefore scholarly knowledge. However we know that these achievements were not a monopoly of the traditional philological hermeneutics, but were shared with the theological, juridical, philosophical and distorical hermeneutics: in short, with all branches of study concerned with editing, critical study of sources and historical interpretation of the writings of the past. The merits of the traditional hermeneutics of literary texts are so unexceptional, its history so difficult to distinguish from other regional hermeneutics that the epistemologist can speak of a common philological basis and pose the following fundamental question: where does the independence of literary hermeneutics really begin? How has it operated and how does it operate today in order to render justice to the aesthetic character of its texts?

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 28 , Issue 109 , March 1980 , pp. 92 - 119
Copyright
Copyright © 1980 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

References

1 Leo Spitzer, in his introduction to Linguistics and Literary History (1948), has tried to explain his stylistical process by means of the hermeneutical circle; however the implicit theory of his interpretation praxis, as unsistematical as it is inimitable, surpasses greatly his marginal hermeneutic reflection, as is best de monstrated by the evaluation by J. Starobinski. L'œil vivant II—La relation critique, Paris 1970, p. 34-81.

2 "The old style of interpretation was insistent, but respectful; it erected another meaning on top of the literal one. The modern style of interpretation excavates, destroys; it digs ‘behind' the text, to find a sub-text which is the true one", in: Against Interpretation and Other Essays, New York 1966, p. 6.

3 "Bemerkungen zur Forschungslage der literarischen Hermeneutik", in Ein führung in die literarische Hermeneutik, Frankfurt 1975, p. 404.

4 Ibid. p. 25.

5 Ibid. p. 13.

6 Wahrheit und Methode Grundlagen einer philosophischen Hermeneutik, Tübingen, 1960, p. 291.

7 I quote as representatives W. Iser, Der Akt des Lesens, Munich, 1976; U. Japp. Hermeneutik—Der theoretische Diskurs, die Literatur und die Konstruktion ihres Zusammenhangs in den philologischen Wissenschaften, Mu nich, 1977; P. Ricoeur, "Die Schrift als Problem der Literaturkritik und der philosophischen Hermeneutik" in J. Zimmermann, ed. Sprache und Welter fahrung, Munich, 1978, p. 67-88; further (semiotically, not hermeneutically oriented) J. Lotman, Die Struktur literarischer Texte, Munich, 1973.

8 H.-G. Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode, p. 291.

9 Ibid. p. 294.

10 Ibid. p. 290 ff.

11 Schleiermacher, Hermeneutik, ed. H. Kimmerle, Heidelberg 1959, p. 80.

12 Introduction, p. 143.

13 Concerning Gadamer and Szondi see also G. Ebelin's article "Hermeneu tik", in Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Tübingen 1957, v. 3, p. 242- 262, and W. Pannenberg (cf. footnote 39/40).

14 According to Ebeling, loc cit. p. 243.

15 Introduction p. 16 f.

16 Ebeling, p. 247.

17 According to Ebeling, p. 248 f.

18 "Lex in tabulis scribebatur et erat scriptum mortua, limitibus tabulae clausa, ideo parum efficax. At Evangelium vivae et liberrimae voci in auras effusae com mittitur, ideo plus energiae habet ad convertendum" quoted from G. Ebeling, "Wort Gottes und Hermeneutik", in Wort und Glaube, 1967, p. 327.

19 Ibid. p. 345.

20 According to W. Pannenberg, "Hermeneutik und Universalgeschichte", in Grundfragen systematischer Theologie, Göttingen 1971, p. 91.

21 See Literaturgeschichte als Provokation, Frankfurt 1970, p. 29 ff.

22 Introduction, p. 190.

23 Szondi has brought it to light again (Introduction, p. 190).

24 See Szondi's Kritik an der harmonisierenden Funktion, attributed by Ast to the spiritual concept which according to him "serves not only for the definition of the fixed goal set by the hermenenutics of Goethe, but at the same time covers with his foggy aura all problems caused by the disparity of time beween the author and the reader or by the interdependence of text and context (Introduc tion p. 139).

25 Schleiermacher: Hermeneutik, p. 81 and 107 ff. (§ § 5-7, 41-44); Szondi has missed the constructivistic roles of Schleiermacher's psychological interpret ation, which were made known particularly by D. Böhler in his essay: "Philosophical Hermeneutics and the Hermeneutical Method". (See vol. 9 of the series: Poetik und Hermeneutik, quoted in the first footnote.)

26 Its unconfessed influence could be demontrated for example in the Marxist interpretations which must allegorise the connection between the basis and the literary superstructure in order to make the mute production conditions speak as if they were active.

27 In a still unpublished conference on literary hermeneutics, Dubrovnik 1978.

28 "Vom Zirkel des Verstehens", in G. Neske, Ed. Festschrift, Martin Heideg ger zum siebzigsten Geburtstag, Pfullingen 1959, p. 34.

29 Sein und Zeit, 2.

30 In R. Bultmann, Glauben und Verstehen, v. 2, Tübingen 1961, p. 217.

31 Ibid. p. 221.

32 Ibid.

33 Ibid. p. 228.

34 Ibid.

35 Ibid. p. 228.

36 Ibid. p. 230, and p. 233.

37 Ibid. p. 232.

38 E. Fuchs, Hermeneutik 1958, p. 133; G. Ebeling, "Wort Gottes und Her meneutik", in Wort und Glaube 1967, p. 343.

39 W. Pannenberg, "Über historische und theologische Hermeneutik, in Grund fragen svstematischer Theologie, Göttingen 1971, p. 139.

40 "Hermeneutik und Universalgeschichte", in Grundfragen systematischer Theo logie, Göttingen 1971, p. 111.

41 H.-G. Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode, Tübingen 1960, op. cit. p. 274, and in the epilogue to the 3rd Edition.

42 Cf. Bultmann's example on the reception of religious art. Glauben und Verstehen, p. 224.

43 As a practical demonstration of these four hermeneutical processes, I have chosen Baudelaire's poem: Spleen II (J'ai plus des souvenirs que si j'avais mille ans); the reader will find the elaboration of successive readings, too voluminous to be quoted here, in the next number of the Romanische Zeitschrift für Litera turgeschichte.

44 R. Posner, "Strukturalismus in der Gedichtsinterpretation" in Sprache im technischen Zeitalter 29 (1969) p. 27-58, particularly p. 47.

45 Now in Essais de stylistique structurale, Paris 1971, p. 307 ff.; Cf. also, "The Reader's Perception of Narrative", in Interpretation of Narrative, Toronto 1978, p. 29.

46 Semiotics of Poetry, Bloomington, London, 1978; cf. also "Instead of only looking for rules regulating narrative structures, I propose that we look for rules regulating actualization of such structures in the text, that is, regulating the very performance of literature as communication." ("The Reader's Perception…").

47 In reference to Wahrheit und Methode p. 291: "Auslegung ist nicht ein zum Versthen nachträglich und gelegentlich hinzukommender Akt, sondern Verstehen ist immer Auslegung, und Auslegung ist daher die explizite Form des Verstehens. "

48 Quoted by Gadamer in the Dubrovnik lecture (cf. note 27).

49 Das Problem der Relevanz, Frankfurt, 1971.

50 Essais de stylistique structurale, p. 340

51 Der Akt des Lesen, Munich, 1976.

52 "Analyse textuelle d'un conte d'Edgar Poe", in Sémiotique narrative et textuelle, ed. Cl. Chabrol, Paris, 1973, p. 29-54.

53 Ibid. p. 30.

54 Ibid. p. 32.

55 Ibid. p. 51.

56 Ibid. p. 30-52.

57 Ibid. p. 30.

58 Immanente Ästhetik - Ästhetische Reflexion, ed. W. Iser, Munich, 1966 (Poetik und Hermeneutik II), p. 461-484, cf. p. 473 and 480: "For a concrete interpretation and a judgement concerning the quality of the poem it is not sufficient to indicate its structural principle and to describe Apollinaire's poetic technique. A series of ambiguities does not suffice to constitute a logical whole. Even if this whole, thanks to the technique with which it is realized, stimulates an ever-changing interpretation, this interpretation is neither fortuitous in its detail nor free from a fundamental orientation imposed upon it by the structure of the text. The first reading reveals this constricting aspect through the sugges tiveness of the rhythm. The interpretation must accept this medium, on which the poem in based."

59 See Alterität und Modernität der mittelalterlichen Literatur, Munich, 1977, cf. p. 10 ff.