Reception Theory Between the Promise of the Concept and the Reality of Reading

Abstract

Reception Theory has primarily focused its attention on the process of receiving and interpreting the text by the reader. It advocates the relativity of understanding, the openness of the literary text, the comprehension of the past through the perspective of the present, and openness toward both previous and contemporary methodologies.

This theory emerged to establish an aesthetic dimension for the text through reading the literary work by introducing new elements into the components of the creative process. Accordingly, this study seeks to examine the act of reading the literary text according to Reception Theory and its mechanisms, through the procedural propositions advanced by Hans Robert Jauss and Wolfgang Iser, while also benefiting from the procedures related to the horizon of expectations within the literary text.