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Abstract Compared with the theories of social object, writer subjectivity, and work ontology, the academic research on Bakhtin’s reader acceptance poetics is significantly lagging behind，which is not conducive to our comprehensive understanding of the overall image of Bakhtin’s poetics construction, and naturally it does not contribute to the modern transformation of the discourse system of contemporary literary theory with Chinese characteristics.
From a macroscopic perspective, Bakhtin’s reader acceptance poetic system mainly includes three aspects: the essentialism of reader acceptance, the methodology of reader acceptance, and the axiology of reader acceptance.
Bakhtin systematically expounded the essence of reader acceptance from three levels: communicative profile, understanding mechanism, and response goals. He believes that the literary reception activities with readers as the observation point is essentially a kind of cultural exchange activities where speakers and readers meet in the “third world”. This is because any expression is used for communication, and literary communication as an aesthetic communication event involves three main interactive relationships: the interaction between the author and the protagonist, the interaction between the reader and the protagonist, and the interaction between the author and the reader. Unlike the interactions between ideologies such as politics, law and morality, the uniqueness of literary communication lies in its complete reliance on the creation of artworks and the re-creation of acceptance. Accordingly, Bakhtin not only clearly outlines the four types, two stages, and dual tasks of reader understanding, but also deeply distinguishes the three essential aspects of positive and creative understanding: single subject interpretation and dual subject understanding, active attitude of positive understanding, and the need for external reference in creative understanding. Furthermore, he discusses the special situation of positive response understanding: any speaker is also a respondent; understanding of delayed positive responses; mother tongue understanding has an irreplaceable charm.
Bakhtin highly values the methodological significance of sociological poetics, psychoanalysis, and formal criticism in literary reception activities. In his view, literary research is bound to enter the “high seas of sociology”(“public domain of sociology”), and sociological poetics has therefore become the “first discipline” in the literary and artistic system. Although Bakhtin did not excessively use psychoanalysis as the mainstream method of critical practice, his judgment that the Oedipus complex is the “sun at the center of the unconscious system”, his dialectical analysis of the relationship between normalcy and pathology in psychoanalysis, and his criticism of subjective psychology, panpsychism, and trauma compensation theory shine with the light of historical materialism. What is particularly valuable is that Bakhtin’s emphasis on literary language, poetic structure and hybridity, his revelation of several patterns embedded in the genre of long novels, and his assertion that the significance of artistic techniques lies in “active reconfiguration”, have all played a positive role in correcting past mechanical materialism and simplistic formalist criticism.
Based on a thorough discussion of the essence and methods of reader acceptance, Bakhtin systematically revealed the holistic, dialogic, and open-ended values of reader acceptance. Bakhtin believed that although readers have different levels and realms in understanding and acceptance, the highest level is to encounter “the great works”, whether it is general appreciation or positively responsive understanding. Thus, Bakhtin’s reader acceptance poetic system provides three insights: aesthetic communication is the universal essence of literary creation and its reception activities; sociological poetics is the fundamental method for engaging in literary interpretation activities; open dialogue is the fundamental demand of literary reception activities.
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Published: 05 January 2025
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