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Poiesis, Aesthesis, and Catharsis: the Aesthetic Experience of Reading “The Day of the Lord” with the Fathers

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Poiesis, Aesthesis, and Catharsis: the Aesthetic Experience of Reading “The Day of the Lord” with the Fathers Poiesis, Aesthesis, and Catharsis: The Aesthetic Experience of Reading “the Day of the Lord” with the Fathers Andrew Talbert It only seems appropriate in a volume dedicated to reception history that we interact, even if only briefly, with the essential founder of this approach to liter- ature, Hans Robert Jauss. Though a well-published scholar with a meticulously detailed hermeneutical methodology for reception history that he described as an “Aesthetic of Reception” (Rezeptionsästhetik), this article concentrates on only a minute, yet crucial element of his hermeneutic: the aesthetic experi- ence. From this basic concept, we will expand briefly outward into the larger interpretive endeavor, gleaning insights from the relationship of one’s initial response to a text, in the case of this article 2Thess 1:6–10, to the historical reading of the same by a select sample of the Church Fathers. It is hoped that this exploration of reception history should reveal the dimensions of biblical meaning and encourage stronger ties between the theological disciplines of (at least) biblical studies and Church history. Before proceeding to a discus- sion of the aesthetic experience and its outflow, an abridged biography of Jauss will familiarise readers with this literary theorist, whom the English-speaking world recognises less frequently than his colleague, Wolfgang Iser. Following the Second World War, Jauss nurtured a burgeoning interest in both medieval literature and Marcel Proust. He was fortunate to associate with Hans-Georg Gadamer at Heidelberg and, following his studies, Jauss eventually took part in the founding of the University of Konstanz in 1966 and was asso- ciated with the university until his death in 1997. At Konstanz, Jauss’ thought matured amongst like-minded scholars who collectively produced a unified theory of reception, with each member of the group emphasizing and devel- oping particular aspects of the theory.1 The “Konstanz school” could be classi- fied methodologically as reader-response in nature, though it is important to observe its independence from the wide-ranging and fragmented movement that operates under that designation in the United States, and includes the likes of Stanley Fish and Richard Rorty. 1 For a more detailed background on Jauss, see Anthony C. Thiselton, Hermeneutics: An Intro- duction (Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2009), 316–318. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi: 10.1163/9789004334960_014 poiesis, aesthesis, and catharsis 185 In the collective publication of his earlier essays, Toward an Aesthetic of Reception, Jauss demonstrates the profound influence of Gadamer on his thought, as well as his reaction to Adorno’s aesthetic of negativity, which re- duces aesthetic experience to consumerism. In his second work, Aesthetic Experience and Literary Hermeneutics, Jauss makes these relationships more explicit.2 Above all, his relationship to Gadamer is clear in his attention to the history of texts (in both geschichtlich and historisch terms), the utilisation of the concept of “horizon,” the dialogic form of understanding, and a rejection of objectivity that ignores the formative power of history and traditions.3 At the same time, Gadamer has been described as the prelude to Jauss,4 for the latter builds upon and distances himself in several key areas from the former. In the first place, Jauss proposes a methodology, the absence of which is a key characteristic of Gadamer’s Truth and Method.5 Secondly, Jauss rejects Gadamer’s concept of the “transtemporal classic.”6 That is, a work of art with the disclosive capacity to timelessly reveal its truth. Most significantly for this paper, though, Jauss reasserts the role of aesthetics in hermeneutics; a move that has earned the suspicion of his mentor.7 In fact, aesthetics thoroughly permeate his methodology, with the concept of aesthetic experience forming the foundation for his hermeneutics. Gadamer’s repugnance to aesthetics is one grounded in a view of abstracted aesthetic consciousness that characterized nineteenth century aesthetic education, and would be appropriate if this was the form of aesthetics advocated by Jauss.8 Alternatively, Jauss has proposed 2 Hans Robert Jauss, Aesthetic Experience and Literary Hermeneutics, ed. Wlad Godzich and Jochen Schulte-Sasse, Theory and History of Literature (Minneapolis: University of Min- nesota Press, 1982), xxxvi. For a more detailed critique of Adorno, see 13–21. Adorno’s aesthetic experience is one of abstraction, which does not cohere with Gadamer’s or Jauss’ emphasis on the manner in which history and traditions shape the way in which we respond to texts. 3 Thiselton, Hermeneutics: An Introduction, 317. 4 David Paul Parris, Reception Theory and Biblical Hermeneutics, Princeton Theological Mono- graph Series (Princeton: Pickwick Publications, 2009), 2. 5 It has frequently been noted that the “and” in Truth and Method ought to be taken adver- satively. Again, Jauss’ likely reflects his debt to Gadamer in his article “History of Art and Pragmatic History,” in which he pits the two concepts at odds. 6 Ormond Rush, The Reception of Doctrine, Serie Teologia (Rome: Gregorian University Press, 1997), 83. 7 Jauss, Aesthetic Experience, xxxvi–xxxvii; Parris, Reception Theory and Biblical Hermeneutics, 166–168. 8 Abstracted aesthetics, according to Gadamer, allows for “unlimited play.” Hans-Georg Gada- mer, TruthandMethod, trans. Joel C. Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall, 2nd ed. (New York: Crossroad, 1989), 72; See also Parris, Reception Theory and Biblical Hermeneutics, 166–168..
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