Die Explizierung des Impliziten

Abstract

Abstract Research on established ›practices‹ in literary studies often includes an analysis of tacit assumptions or implicit norms. In this article, we deal with what we consider a central issue for this kind of research: the question of ›making it explicit‹. We concentrate on the practice of argumentation in literary interpretation and ask how implicit aspects of arguments can be made explicit, and what the problems of such an undertaking are. We proceed in three steps. As a point of departure, we take an interpretation of the poem .Der Knabe im Moor. by Annette von Droste-Hulshoff and analyze which parts of the arguments usually remain implicit when they are presented in literary interpretations. Then, we suggest different reasons for why this might be the case. The third part of our paper argues that rational reconstructions of this kind must always deal with several of the issues that we encountered in our analysis of the case study, especially with the problem that the analysis of implicit elements of practices cannot be purely descriptive.