AESTHETIC DISTANCE AND THE READER’S HORIZON OF EXPECTATIONS

Abstract

Broadly speaking, the temporal distance between two time periods creates an intermediaterelationship between the horizons of the text and the reader. Consequently, the work cannot remainconfined to its historical past, nor can it be entirely bound to our present. This synthesis or
reconciliation of the two time periods is justified by the reader's interpretive stance toward the text.Thus, the text appears more suited to a perspective that is grounded in the reader's contemporaryawareness, granting it a renewed vitality as its language adapts to the differing temporal contexts itencounters.