The added value of the competence of historical reading for literary-historical education

Kurzfassung/Abstract

Based on the hypothesis from the „Call for contributions“, according to which “historical knowledge might not be helpful with regard to the development of literary competence, which might be impeded by an overdose of context knowledge”, it is argued that the subject-specific ‘Competence of historical reading’ does not hinder the development of a literary competence. It rather (1) functions as a method of interlocking between the literary content of an opus and historical knowledge connected to it, (2) takes the text as a basis for a possible impulse for generating and further exploring necessary context knowledge, and (3) further supports breaking the boundaries of the fictitious/fictional worlds of literary works by providing students with insights into their conditionality.
The ‘Competence of historical reading’ is understood as a theoretical construct describing a domain-specific way of reading, which does not primarily originate from the quality of historical texts but puts a focus on a historical way of receiving a broad variety of different kinds of texts (HUMMELSBERGER, 2003). The presenter suggests dividing this competence into two hierarchically structured sub-levels, which are the mode of historical reading and the concrete historical reading operations conducted. Hereby, the mode functions as an element of initiating and controlling the respective reading operations, two of which, for instance, are the identification of concrete historical facts represented in the text on the hand, and of interpretations and contextualizations on the other. Due to the concentration on historical ways of reception, this conceptualization includes the possibility of reading literary texts historically and, thus, the partial treatment of literary texts as historical sources.
Furthermore, a close relationship of literary and historical texts (WHITE, 1986; RÜSEN, 2013) and the respective domain-specific ways of dealing with them (FREDERKING et al., 2011, MEIER et al. 2012) – for instance, the identification of represented norms and values within a text is crucial for both domains – provides students with an easy access to a different way of reading literature. Nevertheless, both ways of handling literature do not compete with each other. The results of these different kinds of analyses can support each other in achieving a more profound understanding of a literary text.

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