Abstract

Despite the skepticism that has cast a long shadow over the debates on the end of literary theory in the last decade-and-a-half, theories that have the touch of history or historicity in their analytical logic continue to enjoy wide recognition among literary critics and continue to be useful for the interpretation and appreciation of literature. Hans Robert Jauss’s theory of the aesthetic of reception is one such theory. This article applies Jauss’s concept of the horizons of expectation to Tennessee Williams’s most-cherished play “The Glass Menagerie” to show that: 1) Reception Theory continues to be a viable tool of literary criticism despite the current calls for less theoretical engagement with literature; 2) the historically-informed understanding of “The Glass Menagerie” can only be adequately achieved through the reconstruction of its dialogic interaction with its past, consecutive, and present readers/audiences; and 3) it is the close study of this interaction that enables the present-day reader to acquire interpretive mastery over the literary work and to understand the ways it can possibly respond to their new horizons of expectation.