The polemics of text and readers in hans robert jauss' and wolfgang iser's reader- oriented critical theories

Abstract EN

This research attempts to highlight Wolfgang Iser's and Hans-Robert-Jauss' theories of reading, as for the reader's role in evaluating, enriching, adding, omitting or modifying on the already existent social and psychological assumptions of the literary text.

Bestowing on the text novelty and constant innovation, this process helps the reader transcend what is traditionally prohibited in the text to reach new epistemological and ethical realms concordant with the reader's horizons of expectations. Hence the theories of Jauss and Iser are held to be intellectually and philosophically important : they are chief among those theories which had attempted to overcome the deficiencies of other contemporary models/definitions of the reader, by promoting positive interaction between the text and the reader.

But being heuristic by nature, we can conclude that hey inevitably simplify the complexity of the concept of the reader, in spite of their extensive illustration of the relationship between the elements involved in the process of reading and the dynamic nature of reading itself. Although Iser's and Jauss' theories of reading have been held as controversial among other reception theories, it remains crucial to the understanding of the nature of literary readers.

They do not only urge a constant re-examination of social and individual conventions of the text, but also they have greatly enriched our understanding of the literary reading, a contribution that can never be overestimated. The article comes to the conclusion that in reading we discover not only alternate visions to explore, but also our own human thirst for freedom of action, ultimate understanding and wish to emancipate from all that hinders our developing human thinking.