Hans Robert Jauss (1921-1997) was an influential German academic who specialized in reception theory and medieval and modern French literature. He was known for his concept of the horizon of expectation, and his work has had a significant impact on the study of these topics. Hans Robert Jauss passed away in 1997. His approach was based on the hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer.
Jauss began his studies at Heidelberg in 1948 after being released from prison following the end of World War II. He studied Romance philology, philosophy, history, and Germanistik (German literature and linguistics). Martin Heidegger and Hans Georg Gadamer were two of the most influential teachers at the time who had an impact on his thinking. He was to remain in that location until 1954. In these years, he traveled to Paris and Perugia. The themes of the past and the present, time and memory, have already occupied Gauss’s research since the time he received his doctorate at the University of Heidelberg in 1952.
In 1959, Jauss took up his first teaching position as associate professor and head of the Romance Studies seminar at the Westphalian University of Münster. In 1961, he moved to the University of Gießen and became a full professor in the Romance Seminar. He helped to restructure the seminar and make it a success. In these years (1959-1962) Gauss founded with Eric Koller a series of medieval texts entitled Grundriß der romanischen Literaturen des Mittelalters (Outlines of Medieval Romantic Literature). In 1963, he played a significant role in establishing the research group “Poetik and Hermeneutics.”
In 1966, the University of Constance was founded as part of a broader reform of the German university system. Jauss was invited by his former teacher Gerhard Hess to join the collective. The new university at Constance was set up with a cooperative and cross-disciplinary structure of “Units of Teaching and Research,” following the Humboldtian principle of developing teaching out of research. While working on several committees, Jauss was particularly involved in the establishment of the “discipline area” (Fachbereiche) of literary studies (Literaturwissenschaft), an innovative structure at the time but one that would soon be emulated throughout Germany.
Jauss became a member of the Heidelberger Academy of Sciences in 1980. He was also honored by the Italian Academy of Sciences. After retiring from his job on 1 April 1987, he continued to live near Constance as a professor emeritus until his death in 1997.
