Abstract
What is literature? What is a way of reading? What do we overlook when we follow a certain way of reading? - The Czech structuralist Jan Mukařovský (1891-1975) and the German hermeneutic philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002) are classical representatives of the theory of literarure who, in spite of the diversity of their approaches, ask both about the particular nature of literary artwork. Their theories appear today, in times of a reception practice that emphasizes the context of the reading beyond measure, as particularly suitable sources for a text-centered treatise on literary theory.
The present study reconstructs the ways of reading and the history of reception of the two approaches. The concepts of Mukařovský's semantic gesture and Gadamer's true word are explained, also with regard to the analytical and interpretative practice of the two authors.
The critical evaluation deals among other things with the different terms of sense in structuralism and hermeneutics, also in comparison to other literary theories. Ultimately, this book is an attempt to find a sensitized attitude towards the literary work of art, that is, an attitude that distinguishes between the open questions of literary theory and how these questions are answered by a concrete way of reading.