History of Literature, Fragment of a Vanished Totality?

Author(s): Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht and Peter Heath

Source: New Literary History, Vol. 16, No. 3, On Writing Histories of Literature (Spring,
1985), pp. 467-479
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
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 Historyof Literature-Fragment
of a Vanished Totality?*
Hans UlrichGumbrecht
I. "History"and "Literature"

rTr HE RELATION between the concepts of "history"and "litera-

ture" has a history;the genesis of the concept of "historyof
literature"and its interpretationas a symptom,part,or frag-
mentof "history"forma chapter fromthe more recentphases of this
historyof a relation.
There are at least two conditions for the possibilityof conceiving
the notion "historyof literature."One of them is the appearanceofthe
collectivesingular "history":it has been interpretedby Reinhart Ko-
selleck as the answer of the early Enlightenmentto the new experi-
ence of a pluralityof historicaldevelopments. This is an experience
which has as its historicalpresuppositionthe enlargementof the en-
vironmentthat was relevant to the world of Europe; projected into
the future,the collectivesingular history becomes one of those con-
cepts wherebyEuropean thought of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries,in developing a teleological picture of history,was able to
free itselffrom the authorityof antiquityand the idea of historical
cycles.The other condition for the notion of "historyof literature"
is theformation of a consciousnessconcerning thespecialcharacterof "lit-
erature"and "art"as formsof practicethathave moved away fromthe
pragmatics of daily life; this consciousness, as an experience em-
bracing differentsocial levels, probably firstset in during the tran-
sitionfromthe late Middle Ages to the Renaissance.
Againstthe background of the new overall concept of historythere
arose-unnoticed, as it were, by contemporaries-two versions of
the concept of literature,which have remained self-evidentto this
* Confronted with the unattractivealternativeof either burdening this intrinsically
complex essay with a multitudeof referencesor of proceeding, by a strictreduction
of such references,in a manner both arbitraryin choice and inaccurate in report,I
have opted for "flightto the front"and dispensed with the apparatus of footnotes.
Yet I want to mentionat this point that I have profitedgreatlyfromcontendingwith
the positions of Karlheinz Barck, Francois Furet, Hartmut Galsterer,Wolfgang Iser,
Hans RobertJauss, Franz Koppe, ReinhartKoselleck, Werner Krauss, Thomas Luck-
mann, Manfred Naumann, Isabel Real de Gumbrecht,WinfriedSchroder,Jean Sta-
robinski,and Hayden White.

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468 NEW LITERARY HISTORY

day: "literature"is seen as a universalphenomenon, whose manifesta-

tions may be sought in any period of any society;the respectivedif-
ferencesbetween these manifestationsqualifythem for being symp-
toms of (differenttypes of) totality(e.g., for different"phases of
historicaldevelopment"attainedin the contextof teleologicalmodels,
or for differencesof "national character").The early Enlightenment
genre of parallelesrepresents this structureof literaturejust as do
Voltaire's writingsin cultural historyand the Encyclopedie, in whose
articleson key poetological concepts general definitionsare mostly
followedby short "histories"of the phenomena concerned and tab-
leaux of theirdifferentaspects in differentnations. In its basic con-
ception, Hegel's Aestheticsstill takes over the universal concepts of
"art" and "literature";at the same time,however,withthe thesisof
the "end of the age of art," it implies a decisive impetus to making
these concepts historically
dynamic.
Whereverthe "historyof literature"is mentioned,up to the middle
of the nineteenthcentury,this expression meant a discourse made
possible (or obligatory)by the incipientspecializationin the domains
of historical research and theory, which centered upon stages of
change in the contentsor formsof literaryphenomena. The overall
historical process, however, remains present in its thematic back-
ground-so present,in fact,thatthe relationof "historyof literature"
and "history"never became a problem: an "independent" evolution
of literaryhistorywas not yetconceivable. Only the disappearance of
the overall concept of historyfrom the thematicbackground of the
historyof literaturemakes possible the transitionto the (non-Marxist)
historiographyof the twentiethcentury.

II. Literatureas Part of the Past, and Literatureas

View of HistoricalTotality
It would hardly make sense to describe the historiographyof lit-
erature in the early nineteenthcenturyas a fragment of overall his-
toriography."Fragments" are of
objects experience which we identify
as parts of a whole, withoutseeing in theirshape a constitutivepart
of thiswhole (a part whichis bounded by a function).More radically,
theyare objects of experience, the shape of whose whole is unknown
to us. Neither condition for application of the predicatefragment to
the historiographyof literaturewas given as long as the crisisof the
notions of historicaltotality,and with it the problem of accommo-
datingliteratureto thishistoricaltotality,had not yetbeen overcome.
"When the Manesse codex came to light,whata treasureof German

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HISTORY OF LITERATURE-FRAGMENT OF A VANISHED TOTALITY? 469

language, poetry,love and joy appeared in these poets of the Swabian

age!" (Johann Gottfriedvon Herder, 1777); "To bring to light ...
everythinggreat and beautiful that the neglect of previous genera-
tions has buried in oblivion, to present it to our contemporariesin
livingfreshness,to disclose its meaning to them: thiswe consider our
vocation,to which we gladly dedicate everyeffort"(August Wilhelm
von Schlegel, 1811); "Everyone should read it [the Nibelungenlied],so
thathe may receiveitseffectaccording to his capacity"(Johann Wolf-
gang von Goethe, 1827). For the Romantic enthusiasm over the
Middle Ages and its literature,to which we customarilyattributethe
birthof the philological disciplines,the textsdiscovered (and edited)
were not symptomsof a phase of historicaldevelopment but partsof
a pastworldglorified the illusion of whose presence could
in retrospect,
be achieved by "bringingto light what the neglect of previous gen-
erations had buried in oblivion." Yet a main aspect of the Romantic
pictureof the Middle Ages was the consciousnessthatthisideal world
was irrevocablylost, that the historicaldistance to it was unbridge-
able-and thisconsciousnessexplains the enthusiasmfor"ruins"and
"fragments." The Romantic concept of the "fragment," however
(which soon became the name of a literarygenre and-paradoxi-
cally-the keywordfor a vogue of literarycreation),had nothingto
do with the problem of the mutual adjustmentbetween the totality
of the past world and its texts.
"In Tristanthe speech flows as gentlyas in Yvain,but more charm-
inglyand gracefully,often into playfulness;Parsifalis more serious
than either,but bolder and more splendid. In all three works,the
individualcharacteristicsof the three greatestOld German writersof
their age-Gottfried, Hartmann and Wolfram-come most clearly
beforeour eyes" (Jacob Grimm,1815); "Hartmann ... a lovable man
and a skilled artist,.. . Gottfried... a free spirit,but nothing less
than a free-thinkerin the traditionalsense, . . . Wolfram ... a poet
of the true German kind,withall the strengthsand all the weaknesses
thathave belonged to our race fromthe earliesttimesto the present
day" (Adolf Bartels, 1901). The way in which the textsof the past
were soon presented by the historiansof literatureis certainlylinked
witha new taskof literaturein the bourgeois societyof the nineteenth
century:it took over from religion the role of propounding a cos-
mology.The textsof the past were no longer a partof an ideal world
and not yet a symptomof a past world. In that theywere esteemed
as mediaopeninga viewof historical totalityto thereader,theircognitive
value was hypostatizedto an unsurpassable degree, and theirrecep-
tion was privileged over all other forms of the endeavor to grasp
totality.In the nationalisticformsof thisview of totalitythroughthe

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470 NEW LITERARY HISTORY

literatureof the past, it was the genius of the great writersin whose
discourse-as in a focus-one could hope to attain,once and forall,
in its "totality,"that national characterof which the national history
was taken to be the articulation.More familiar-and tolerable-to
us is the thesisof Georg Lukacs, according to whichit is the principle
of exemplificationproper to "great,""realistic"art whichmakes pos-
sible the "objectiveknowingof the totalityof a historicalsituationand
the laws of historyunderlyingit." Without polemical intent,we can
now emphasize what these two positions-despite all the differences
crucialto an evaluation-have in common: both set "literature"apart
fromthe totalityof the overall historicalprocess; both envisage it as
a medium for knowing this totality,which-unlike a view that sees
literatureas a "symptom"of history-is not really in need of spe-
cialized interpretationin order to unfold its unique cognitivevalue.

III. Historyof Literatureas "Fragment"and the

Collapse of Totalities
Where belief in the ontological status of teleological concepts of
historyhad vanished-or where such teleologicalstructureshad been
downgraded to models of historiographicwriting-a new concept of
the "historyof literature"arose. For along with the certaintyof one
and continuous
objective course of history,there departed also the con-
cept of historyas a totality,to which as a whole literaturecould be
related. Its place had now to be defined in the newlyrevivedplurality
of national historiesand cultural histories,and in the newlydiscov-
ered pluralityof special histories(Sektorgeschichten).With the vanish-
ing of the presuppositionof a directed history,even the hithertoself-
evidentconcomitancebetween historicallocalizationof literaryworks
and theiraestheticjudgment disappeared; there were no longer any
principlesor "basic laws" of historywhich confirmedthe privileged
cognitiverank of "great literature,"no value hierarchybetween suc-
ceeding epochs from which its current aesthetic ranking could be
deduced. Along withthe institutionalizing of the slogan of the (sup-
posed) "autonomy of literature"and the progressivediversification
of scientificdisciplines, the crisis of the teleological conception of
historymade it possible to conceive that program for an autono-
mous-or at least "relativelyautonomous"-history of literature,to
whichwe have become so much accustomed in the West (and whose
rejection has now for half a centuryoccasioned a noteworthyfor-
eignness in the theorizing about literaturethat prevails in socialist
countries).

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HISTORY OF LITERATURE-FRAGMENT OF A VANISHED TOTALITY? 471

Now this (relatively)autonomous historyof literatureis fragmen-

taryin the fullsense of the word. For among its(mostlypreconscious)
presuppositions,on the one hand, is the disappearance of thatwhole
of the historicaltotalityto which historicalconsiderationsof literary
phenomena were alwaysreferred(thus we do not know any more the
shape of thatwhole to whichthe historyof literaturemustbe oriented
as a part); it continues, on the other hand, the pursuit of cognitive
goals whichcould acquire theirmeaning onlyagainstthe background
of a teleologicallydirected course of the entire historicalprocess (it
is thus a fragmentfroma departed type of historicalconsciousness,
and as such has littleprospect of becoming a constitutivepart of a
substitutefor a historicaltotalityyet to be conceived). The survival
of the identificationof the works' localization in historyand their
aesthetico-literary evaluation, the search for special "laws" of devel-
opment in the historyof literature,the forwardingof ever new ar-
guments to defend the claim of literatureand its interpretationto
privileged historical knowledge-all these are indicationsof the per-
sistenceof teleological derivativesagainst the background of a dete-
leologized historicalconsciousness-phenomena, therefore,which
must be assigned to the historicalcategory of "simultaneityof the
unsimultaneous."
If the historiansof literaturewere to be bothered by the fact that
their practice implied a consciousness of historythat had become
obsolete,then-along withother subdisciplinesin historicalresearch
and historiographicalwriting(which are often seen as "total" only
through coupling by administrativeinstitutions)-they would have
to thinkabout fundamentals,of which-at best-we have only the
firsttraces in present-daytheorizing about literature.If the frag-
mentarynature of the historyof literatureis to be done away with,
if there is a wish to convertit to the statusof a constitutivepart of a
new science of history,then an initialconditionwould be the achieve-
ment of three insights,which may be regarded as the Rubicon be-
tween a historyof literaturethat is a fragmentof a vanished totality
and one whichpromotesthe integrationof historicalsubsciencesinto
a new discipline.
In the firstplace, historicalreconstructionand aestheticevaluation
of literaturemust be kept separate from each other, since-at least
to begin with-such historicalresearchis no longer carriedon against
the background of a teleological picture of history,which was the
presuppositionfor theirconcomitancy.Investigationof past conven-
tions of literarytaste and aestheticnorms remains,obviously,a part
of literaryhistory; it should be equally obvious that the aim of such a
distance established between the historyand aestheticsof literature

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472 NEW LITERARY HISTORY

must not be their mutual estrangement,but perhaps-in the long

run-their theoreticallywell-foundedreconciliation,the approach to
which has till now been hampered preciselyby the belief in their
identity.In the second place, one has to admit what nobody would
doubt with regard to a historyof historicaldisciplines,namely,the
fact that "historicaltotality"is a background concept-either unde-
fined or defined only vaguely-subject to variationin differenthis-
toricalsubsciences.It is thereforenecessaryto render understandable
what these background concepts of historicaltotalitymean in each
particularcase, and to bring them close to congruence,if we wish to
do away withthe statusof the historicalsubsciencesas "fragmentsof
a vanished totality."In the third place, since the metahistoricalcon-
cept of literature(in dominantuse to thisday) arose againstthe back-
ground of a relativelyprecise concept of historicaltotality,it follows
that,afterthe disappearance of the totality"history,"the equally pre-
cise patternof the fragment"literature"can likewiseno longer per-
sist.
The most importantreason forthe prolonged crisisof the concept
of literaturemay well lie here, and beyond that a possibilityof un-
derstanding the failure of so many attempts to redefine it from
within-the failure of redefinitionswhich are undertaken "purely
fromwithinthe field of literaryscience,"excluding the surrounding
area of theoreticalreflectionon history.

IV. "Matrix" instead of "Totality";"Objectivization"

instead of "Totality-View"
Less as a consequence of (meta)theoreticalreflectionthan as a by-
productof a broad tendencyof researchin the historicalsciences,the
firststeps have been taken toward the replacing of outworn-and
invariablyontological-concepts of historicaltotality.In their place
have emerged concepts such as "mentality"or "social knowledge,"
which meanwhile give direction to innumerable diachronic or syn-
chronic studies-on the evolution of mentalitiesor stocksof knowl-
edge, on their distributionamong social groups. This silent substi-
tutionof the core concept in historicalscience can easily be justified
a posteriori.All historicalsubsciences treat objectivizationsof past
human action and behavior as "raw material" for their interpreta-
tions; all such acting and behaving was built upon stocksof knowledge
(of whichthe agents are aware) or (preconscious)attitudes;
the concept
of mentalitycan be defined as an abstractionfrom the notions of
"social knowledge" and "attitude."Mentalitiesthus have the value of
a commonmatrixfor all those differenttypes of action and behavior

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HISTORY OF LITERATURE-FRAGMENT OF A VANISHED TOTALITY? 473

whichthe differenthistoricalsubsciences,startingout fromdifferent

typesof objects,are expected to reconstruct.
Our systematicretracingof a nonintentionalprocess in the history
of the historicaldisciplines,the process of replacing ontologicalcon-
cepts of historicaltotalityby the notion of mentalityas a common
matrix,raises a series of implicationsforhistoricaltheorywhichhave
not yetbeen made conscious. This historyof mentality(or the history
of the evolution and distributionof stocks of social knowledge and
attitudes)should not be limited to a role as one in a number of his-
toricalsubdisciplines(such as economic history,historyof technology,
politicalhistory,and so forth),which seems, at the moment,to be its
statusin practice. Its applicabilityas an organ for integratingall the
historicalsubsciences has thereforeto be promoted, and withit the
insightthatthe historyof mentalitydoes not deal witha specificfield
of objects-that is, a special field of sources. In this particular re-
spect-namely, as an organizerof disciplines-the historyof men-
talityis a substitute for traditional concepts of historical totality.
Under a metatheoreticalaspect, however,itdiffersfromthe historical
totalitiesby its renunciationof ontological claims,or in other words:
by avoiding the obligation of grasping the "deepest" and "most ulti-
mate" levels of "true reality."Neither is the historyof mentality-in
the uncriticalsense of the word historicist. For whethera historio-
graphic discourse is subordinated to criticalorientations(or to those
of a normativesocial ethics) does not depend on its object-there is
no "natural priority"attaching to economic history,the historyof
political intentions,or even the historyof ideas-but rather on the
historian'sdeterminationto adapt the interpretationand presenta-
tion of research data to the problems and needs of his own day.
If "mentality"be accepted as a new background concept forall the
historicaldisciplines,we have at our disposal a startingpoint for de-
veloping a concept of literature-adapted to the needs of literary
history-whichthen has to be a constitutivepart of the concept of
mentality.We shall directthe line of deductiveargumentto an answer
for this question in terms of the problem of whether the sources,
referredto by a general conventionas "literature,"open up specific
avenues to historicalknowledge. In advance, we exclude as a possible
solutionthe thesisthat literatureis a privilegedmedium of historical
knowledge (no longer, in this sense, a medium for knowledge of
"historicallaws," but rathera medium, say, for insightinto the "true
structure"of mentalities);such a position would be all too obviously
motivatedby the literaryhistorians'chronic need to apologize-by
their collectiveinferioritycomplex vis-a-visthe "professional"histo-
rians,whom theysee as historiansof totality.
Among the mass of all objectivizations of past human action and

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474 NEW LITERARY HISTORY

behavior whichconcern the historicalsubdisciplines,a special group,

in respect to the opportunitiesof knowledge they afford,is consti-
tuted by texts(we are not yet speaking of literarytexts).Buildings,or
utensils, or bones are-like texts-objectivizations of past human
action or behavior, but unlike texts they are not signsof past social
knowledge presupposed by action and behavior, and-in contrast
now to textsand pictorialrepresentations-they are notable togivea
mimetic of past action and behavior.All objects,in other
representation
words, of historicalinterpretationare objectivizationsof human ac-
tionand behavior,but as signsof the elementsof past stocksof knowl-
edge and, often, mimetic representationsof past interactions,texts
offer specific opportunities for the reconstructionof mentalities,
whereasbuildingsor utensilsor bones are symptoms ("traces")of stocks
of social knowledge and parts (in the material sense) of interaction
situations.Moreover, texts,like all other objects of historicalinter-
pretation, can be used to reconstruct stocks of social knowledge
which,whetherby accident or the design of their author, were not
articulatedby signs,and to develop hypothesesabout conscious atti-
tudes which were a condition for the emergence of those intentions
to which theirown origin is due.
If texts,therefore,against the background of the integrativecon-
cept of mentality,open a threefoldopportunityfor historicalknowl-
edge-as mimeticrepresentation,as sign, and as symptom-then a
consequence of thisrole mustbe a change in the traditionalmethods
of the historian'ssource criticism.Source criticismwas fora long time
a program exclusivelydirected to a use of the mimeticpotentialof
texts,"purifying"them fromstocksof knowledge and attitudesspe-
cificto past ages. Source criticismconsidered those historicallyspe-
cificpresuppositionsof textsas a sortof "distortionof perspectives."
Interpretationof sources, on the other hand, as a procedure within
the historyof mentality,occurs as a three-stageprocess referringto
threelayersof elementsthatare to be assigned to the three-equally
relevant-perspectives of knowledge aforementioned(theme,inter-
pretation,motivation).
In view of the possibilityoutlined for a demarcation of textsas a
subgroup of objects for historicalinterpretation,and consideringthe
all too familiarproblems in segregating"literature"as a textualsub-
area, we can naturallyask whether the subdisciplineof "historyof
literature,"in the contextof a (future?)history-integratedas history
of mentality-would do well to establish its identitya priori by a
clearlystaked out field of sources. It would be conceivable,say, that
its heritage of interpretativeprocedures and methodologicalreflec-
tions should be invested in the furtherdevelopment of an organon

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HISTORY OF LITERATURE-FRAGMENT OF A VANISHED TOTALITY? 475

entitled "historicalhermeneutics,"which, renouncing the demarca-

tion of a specificfield of objects,would have an integratingfunction
in regard to the text-relatedhistoricaldisciplines.But the weightof
tradition,and the established division of disciplines, offer a more
favorable prospect to a differentperspective for a new historyof
literature.We are speaking of the possibilityof drawing a new con-
cept of "literature,"and a new identityfor our field,fromthe use of
the predicate literaturein common and cultivatedspeech. If thiscon-
templated new concept of literatureis to be grounded on the special
cognitiveopportunitieswhich "literarytexts"offerto interpretation
withina historyof mentalities,then it must elucidate these textsas
objectivizationsof particulartypesof communicativeacts-or better,
of particularcommunication situations.
To develop the "type"-in Max Weber's sense-of a literarycom-
munication situation,we may utilize, in addition to a multitudeof
indices pointingin the same direction,the observationthat so vague
a pair of concepts as prodesseet delectarewas sufficientfor centuries,
under the mostvaried historicaland social circumstances,to describe
the intentionsof literaryauthors and theirreaders. This observation
leads to the proposal to mark off the "literary"communicationsitu-
ation from all types of everydaypractical communicationsituations
by the constitutivemark of comparatively in
vaguelyshapedintentions
the consciousnessof both authors and recipients,as a resultof which
the reciprocal expectations of intentionremain unsharp too. If such a
vague shape of intentions and intentionexpectationsdoes not impair
the mutual coordination of interaction,this is due, in the ideal type
of the literarycommunicationsituation,to the compensatingeffect
of especiallydifferentiated
patternsof communicativebehavior for au-
thorsand recipients.An indicationof the grade of precisionattained
by these patternsof communicativebehavior in the literarycommu-
nicationsituationis, among others,the possibilityof repeatedlycod-
ifyingthem in the subsidiarygenre of the "poetics."
Now what is the significanceof such a concept of the literarycom-
munication situation for the specific perspectives of knowledge
opened up by literarytexts?If-according to general action theory-
we start from the premise that the motivationsof actions ("inten-
tions") consist of synthesesof experiences ("expectations") and ex-
perienceson/aboutthe other self("needs"), and if-proceeding from
our concept of the literarycommunication situation-we assert of
literaryauthors and their recipientsthat their intentions,but above
all theirreciprocal expectations,are but vaguely shaped, it can then
be concluded that preconscious needs of both authors and their re-
cipientsweigh heavilyin the genesis and institutionalization of (his-

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476 NEW LITERARY HISTORY

toricallyspecific) literarycommunicationsituations.This line of ar-

gument converges with a thesis developed some years ago by Franz
Koppe with the tools of analyticaland constructivist philosophy: lit-
erary texts are a privilegedobjectfor thereconstruction
ofpreconsciouscol-
lectiveneedsituations.
Such a thesisenables us to understand whyliterarytextsthathave
persistedthroughthe ages have forced theoriststo suppose thatthey
attained the special status of "objective historicalprognoses." But it
is more importantto make explicitat this point a reservationwhich
has (by implication)accompanied each step in the development of
our proposed demarcation of the field "literarytexts." Not all the
texts that we call literarywere media in past contextsof interaction
corresponding to our concept of the literarycommunicationsitua-
tion; it is certain, indeed, that the type of situationin question did
not even exist at all periods or in everykind of society.But thisvery
reservationpoints to the opportunityof reconstructingprocesses of
"differentiating"or "depragmatizing" situations (between, say, the
late Middle Ages and early modern period, or betweenthe literature
of the Enlightenmentand the avant-gardemovements),and of prof-
iting from them as symptomsof overall change in the historyof
mentalities.

V. Texts as Fragmentsof CommunicationSituations

The demarcationof a background concept of historyto whichthe

historyof literaturecan be related as a constitutivepart does away
withthe fragmentarystatusof the sub-area "historyof literature."It
is, therefore,the most important precondition for developing the
"historyof literature"as a new discipline-all thisquite apart fromthe
acceptabilityof the specificconcept "historyof mentality"as a func-
tional substitutefor traditionalconcepts of historicaltotality.What
mustbe settled,once and forall, on a metatheoreticallevel-namely,
the conversion of a fragmentto the status of constitutivepart of a
whole-is a process identical in its structureto any interpretationin
the everydaypractice of the literaryhistorian.At the startof inter-
pretation,the text is always a fragmentof the still indeterminate
whole of the communicationsituation,and the goal of interpretation
is the reconstructionof the latter.Of course,conversionof a fragment
of an indeterminatewhole into the constitutivepart of a determinate
whole at the level of textinterpretationis differentfromthe parallel
procedure at the level of metatheory.The differenceis thatin inter-
pretationthe relation between fragment-or-part and whole is cate-

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HISTORY OF LITERATURE-FRAGMENT OF A VANISHED TOTALITY? 477

goricallydeterminedin advance by theirsubsumptionunder the con-

cepts of "medium" and "communicationsituation."It is thiscategor-
ical frameworkwhich permits the development of what we call a
method of interpretation.
At this point, we may compare textual interpretation,guided by
theoryand method, with a puzzle. Far frombeing a merelyplayful
arabesque to an articleon the theoryof literaryhistory,thiscompar-
ison can become relevant in that it sharpens our awareness of the
specificmeaning of the predicate method in the contextof the histor-
ical-hermeneuticdisciplines.As the puzzle solverbegins witha vague
idea of the picture to be assembled (which may be suggested by the
pieces of the game that are stillat the stage of fragments),so every
textualinterpretationwithinthe frameof a historyof mentalitiessets
out froma hypothesisconcerningthe communicationsituationto be
reconstructed (that is, concerning the relation of the intentions,
needs, and expectationsof authors and recipients).This firsthypoth-
esis is a comparativelyspontaneous synthesisof the experiences of a
firstreading withelementsof prior knowledgeconcerningsocial his-
toryin general, and literaryhistoryin particular.The vague concep-
tion of the picture to be assembled now orientatesthe puzzle solver
in his attemptsat creating a whole,just as the firsthypothesiscon-
cerningthe communicationsituationorientatesthe interpreterin the
second step, where he segmentsthe textand begins to align the seg-
ments with one another. A third parallel can be instituted,between
thoseinstancesof correctionor confirmationwhichlead the wayfrom
the vague idea of the picture-to-be-assembledup to the solution of
the puzzle, and the firsthypothesisconcerninga communicationsit-
uation, which is surpassed by the final result of interpretationin
precision and degree of differentiation.These instances, for the
puzzle solver,are the formof the surfaceon whichthe puzzle pieces
are to be put togetherand the Gestaltendeposited in his mind; for
the interpreterof literaryhistory,theyare the philologicallyattested
substance of the text (resemblingin functionthe "formof the basic
surface") and the theoryunderlyinghis interpretation(whose func-
tion is like that of the Gestalten).Methods of interpretationare the
creativeuse ofhumanimagination, guidedbyinstancesofconfirmation and
correction given from without.
It would be trivialto point out the differencein "dignity"between
the puzzle and the literaryhistorian'sinterpretation.But thereisjust
one other quite suggestive parallel between them that needs to be
rejected at this point: whereas the puzzle findsits definitivesolution
in the conversionof all fragmentsinto constitutiveparts of a whole,
in the complete coverage of the basic surface,the resultsof interpre-

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478 NEW LITERARY HISTORY

tationare never final results;in other words, theyare "finalresults"

under the flexible condition that the degree of precisionand differ-
entiation they attain is sufficientto the interestswhich led to the
selectionof the given text as an object of interpretation.

VI. The Historiographyof a New Historyand Its

Subdisciplines
Marc Bloch's book La societe feodaleis the stillunsurpassed paradigm
of a new discipline of historydirected to the historyof mentalities.
For Bloch's work,and the books of his successors,the category"struc-
tural history"has been invented,and thisconcept points to a central
problemin the historiographyof mentality.The linkbetweenhistory
of mentalityand structuralhistoryis not so close because the former
approach would exclude the reconstructionof evolutionaryprocesses
(Bloch himself shows the contraryby distinguishingthe firstand
second feudal ages); what makes structuresseem to dominate pro-
cesses in the historiographyof mentalityis the linearity of themedium
"text"in which it participates.It obliges the historianto present in
successiveorderthe various contemporaneous sections of reconstructed
mentality-for example, stocks of knowledge in differentfields of
practice,differentlevels of quality running from preconscious atti-
tudes to particularly highly developed stocks of knowledge, from
basic elements of knowledge common to all membersof a societyto
the competenciesof specialists.Presentedin succession,such sections
have to be rendered simultaneousby the reader. But if simultaneity
is here firstof all the goal of the receptiveactivity,it becomesjust as
hard for the reader to switchinto settingup process-typepatternsof
meaning as it is for the author to assemble his material about the
axes of simultaneityand of process at the same time.
This technicalproblem of discourse posed to an integrativehistory
of mentalityprovides, on the other hand, the opportunityto think
about new waysof "relativelyautonomous" expositionin the historical
subdisciplines. Such a relative autonomy in narratingthe historyof
literatureshould not be confused witha renewed postulationof "au-
tonomous laws of development."Withan orientationof thatsort,the
historyof literaturewould relapse into the status of "fragmentof a
vanished totality."Histories of literaturewhich seek to avoid such a
relapse mustbe writtenagainst the background-already present,or
at least foreseeable in basic outline-of an integratedaccount of his-
tory.This relationshipof theme and background will bring with it,
among others, the following tasks: the scope of the textualcorpus

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HISTORY OF LITERATURE-FRAGMENT OF A VANISHED TOTALITY? 479

under discussion cannot be defined by way of a metahistoricalcon-

cept of literature,but only by reconstructingthe relations between
versionsof "literary"and everydaycommunicationsituationspeculiar
to a period; the demarcation of periodscannot be based solely on in-
traliterarycriteria, such as "change of structure"or "innovationof
theme," but must at least point to congruences or dislocations be-
tween intraliterarychanges and caesuras at other levels of history.
Such dislocationsof literature,which were previouslytaken to con-
firmthe conjecture ofitsautonomous mustbe viewed under
development,
the category of "nonsimultaneityof the simultaneous"-whether it
be a matterof the permanence of aesthetictraditionsand norms or
of innovativethrustswhichrun ahead of developmentsat otherlevels
of the historyof mentality.
It is, indeed, even more importantthatthe author of a new history
of literatureshould not lose sight of a criticaland normativeorien-
tation whereby the differenthistorical subdisciplines preserve, by
meansof theirown pragmatics,the possibilityof becoming mutually
linked. For withoutthis point of contact,however accuratelythe his-
torians may have prepared the integrationof their respectivedis-
courses, their work inevitablydegenerates into the fragmentof a
complex interactionwhichremainseitherethicallyor politicallyblind.

UNIVERSITAT/GESAMTHOCHSCHULE SIEGEN

(Translated by Peter Heath)

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