A Study On "the Liminal Space" Of Iser's Interpretation Thoughts

Wolfgang, Iser,1926-2007 was a significant thinker of the Receptional Aesthetic. He also was an eminent literary theorist and literary critic both in German and American. He was much established in many fields such as aesthetic, literary anthropology and interpretation. This thesis, focusing on his the range of interpretation, discusses his thoughts on interpretation and the liminal space from three aspects:the exegesis of the canon and the reader's interpretation and the interpretation of culture. The purpose of this paper is to map an overall feature of Iser's literary thoughts and discover the interrelationship between his interpretation thinking and his receptional aesthetic. This study takes an attempt to draw the outline of the path of Iser's whole life thinking.The full text consists of five parts. The first chapter describes Iser's life and thinking, summarizes former studies about Iser, and give the compendium of "the liminal space". From the text interpretation point of view, interpretation could be divided into three modes:the exegesis of the canon and the reader's interpretation and the interpretation of culture. The second chapter investigates the mode of the exegesis of the canon, probe the liminal space that opened up by this mode and how to negotiate this space. In this model, the liminal space represented as the asymmetry between the Torah and the guidance for the life of the community. At last the liminal space colonized by authority. The third chapter discloses another mode:the reader's interpretation. The liminal space opened up by this mode represented as the unbalance between reader and text and negotiated by blank and negative. The forth chapter concentrates on the third mode:the interpretation of culture. The liminal space opened up by this mode solved through recursive looping. At the last chapter,from blank to the liminal space, the writer believes that Iser's thinking has great theoretical value to interpretation.