Life-World Analysis and Literary Interpretation. On the Reconstruction of Symbolic Reality Spheres

Abstract

A specific method for literary interpretation on the interface of phenomenology and the social sciences is based on life-world analysis taking over a hermeneutic perspective. Starting from Alfred Schutz’s assumption that art, amongst other things, is the conscious reinterpretation of structures of relevance of the life-world, the paper introduces the Schutzian conception of literary interpretation which is characterized by the aim of reconstructing the “logic of the poetic event” which runs contrary to everyday life and rational thinking. After connecting life-world theoretical with socio-scientific hermeneutical reflections to capture the triangular relationship of author, work and recipient, Schutz’s interpretation of Goethe’s “Wilhelm Meister’s Journeyman Years” will be presented. This analysis will be enhanced by symbol-theoretical reflections which serve for a further phenomenologically oriented interpretation of an excerpt of “Journeyman Years” with a specific emphasis on reverence and religious motives.