A feeling for fiction : becoming what we behold

Poetics, journal of empirical research on culture media and the arts; Vol 30, issue 4, agosto 2002, pages 221-241 https://doi.org/10.1016/S0304-422X(02)00011-6

Author: 

1. David S. Miall; Departments of English and Psychology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; david.miall@ualberta.ca 
2. Don Kuiken; Departments of English and Psychology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; dkuiken@ualberta.ca; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4330-2223 

Keywords: Narrative feelings, fiction, literature, aesthetics reaction, reading interact.  

Abstract: Feelings during literary reading can be characterized at four levels. First, feelings such as enjoyment, pleasure, or the satisfaction of reading are reactions to an already interpreted text [Spiel 9 (1990) 277].While providing an incentive to sustain reading, these feelings play no significant role in the distinctively literary aspects of text interpretation. Second, feelings such as empathy or sympathy with an author, narrator, or narrative figure are involved in the interpretive processes by which are presentation of the fictional world is developed and engaged [Poetics 23 (1994) 125]. Although serving an important mimetic role within text comprehension, these feelings ,too ,do not derive from the distinctively literary aspects of reading. Third, feelings of fascination, interest, or intrigue are an initial moment in readers’ response to the formal components of literary texts (narrative, stylistic, or generic). Although serving to capture and hold readers’ attention [Poetics 22 (1994) 389], these aesthetic reactions only anticipate a fourth level of feeling that is the main focus of the present discussion: the modifying powers of feeling. We propose that aesthetic and narrative feelings interact to produce metaphors of personal identification that modify self-understanding. Weal so argue that the concept of catharsis (the conflict of tragic feelings identified by Aristotle) identifies one particular form of a more general pattern in which aesthetic and narrative feelings evoked during reading interact to modify the reader. We illustrate these interactions with examples  from two studies of readers’ responses to a Sean O’Faola in short story. 

Language: English 

Publication: agosto, 2022 

Volumen: Poetics, journal of empirical research on culture media and the arts; Vol 30, issue 4, agosto 2002, pages 221-241. 

Enlace permanente