Blank:the Poetics Beyond Words

"Blank" is a concept advocated by western Reception Aesthetic. It’s Wolfgang Iser, the German aesthetician and literary critic, who first and completely put forward it. In his essay Indeterminacy and the Reader’s Response, which published in 1970,he proposed that it contains a large number of blank and indeterminacy in a literary work, which enable the reader to search for meanings of it, and thus provide the reader with the right to participate in the constitution of a literary work. In Wolfgang Iser’s view, these "blank and indeterminacy of text" form the "response-inviting structure" of literary works. Blank of a text invite and inspire a reader’s imaginative participation to fill the blank, making the potential text actualization and concretised. In his book The Act of Reading, which published in 1976, Wolfgang Iser deepened his cognition on Blank and made a specific interpretation on it. Chinese ancient literary theory has not put forward the concept of "Blank" specifically, however, we find that the idea of "Blank" has always been existing in a potential form when we hackle Chinese ancient literary theory.To some extent, the exist of blank is determined by the nature of language. The exist of blank provides the reader with the right to interpret the meanings of a text. With the help of imagination, a reader can fill the blank, on the basis of his or her own life experience and learning accomplishment, thus give the text his or her personal interpretation and he or she can get infinite lingering charm from the limited words. So,this essay specially emphasis the value and function of "Blank" in the process of the generation of meanings of a text and call it "the poetics beyond words".The essay includes four parts. The first part discusses the raise of the idea of "Blank", its thought source, value and significance. The second part is a comparison study on the idea of "Blank" in Chinese ancient poetics. The two concepts of "Blank" have their own character as they come from different cultural context. The essay will explain the similar operation mechanism between "Yun Wei" and "Yi Jing" inChinese context and the concept of "Blank" in western Reception Aesthetic. And then the essay will discuss their difference from philosophical basis, theoretical connotation and the extent of application. The third part discusses the concept of "Blank" from the aspect of "the debate of language and meaning". One of the value and significance of the concept of "Blank" is its trying to break the limitation of language, making reader experience the "flavor beyond flavor", using the effect of "beyond words", in order to meet the need of expressing one’s feelings. The fourth part discusses the concept of "Blank" from the aspect of "reader’s participation". The exist of blank provides the reader with the right to participate in the constitution of a text. However, this right has its limitation, that is to say, reader’s interpretation on the text is not arbitrary, he or she should follow the principle of "appropriate concretised ".On the basis of the creation of Chinese poetry, this essay intends to put the concept of "Blank" into the context of Chinese ancient poetics, making it flesh with new vitality and gaining more meanings. Also, this essay try to do something with the transformation of Chinese ancient literary theory and the establishment of modern theoretical form of Chinese poetics.