A Critical Reading of Select Commentaries on Rumi’s Masnavi Based on Aesthetics of Reception by Jauss and Iser

Reader-oriented theories of literary criticism maintain that meaning is not something fixed in the mind of the author or hidden in the text; rather, meaning is shaped when the reader interacts with the text. This article draws on aesthetics of reception by The Jauss and Iser to study seven select commentaries on the Masnavi. More specifically, an aesthetic analysis was conducted on The Song of the Reed, as well as three stories from the first book of Masnavi (The King and the Maid; The Lion and the Prey; The Jewish King). The main aim was to find out what components of the ‘horizon of expectation’ influenced the various commentators’ opinions about the main themes of these stories. Using a descriptive-analytical method, 200 select verses were studied, and it was found that each commentator had created a meaning for The Masnavi verses influenced by his horizon of social and literary expectation.