The act of perception: from the focus given to the reader on the aesthetics of reception to the role of the audience in the performance of oral poetry

Abstract

The proposal of this review article is to address issues and aspects of some texts referring to critical literary theory called Reader Response Criticism literary theory or Aesthetics of Reception. Will be used theories and concepts of authors such as Hans Robert Jauss, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Wolfgang Iser and Regina Zilberman, in order to base the approach taken by this critical conception to the relevance of the reader in the process of reception and perception of the literary work. Based on these, there will be an approach on the concepts of audience and performance of Paul Zumthor. This author studies, among other things, the poetic voice, i.e. the oral literature and the links between producers of poetry and their receptors. Finally, a comparison is drawn between the importance given to the reader, in the studies of the Aesthetics of Reception, and the focus given by Paul Zumthor, one of the great scholars of the poetic voice, to the roles of listeners and the general context of the moment when the poetry is read. Will be discussed the role of reception in the act of reading a text is equal to the attitude of the listener when in contact with the hearing of a poem. To explain this comparison, it will be essential to explicit the concept of performance of Zumthor.