Description
Book SynopsisDoes reading novels evoking empathy with fictional characters really cultivate our sympathetic imagination and lead to altruistic actions on behalf of real others? Empathy and the Novel presents a comprehensive account of the relationships among novel reading, empathy, and altruism. Though readers'' and authors'' empathy certainly contribute to the emotional resonance of fiction and its success in the marketplace, Keen finds the case for altruistic consequences of novel reading inconclusive (and exaggerated by defenders of literary reading). She offers instead a detailed theory of narrative empathy, with proposals about its deployment by novelists and its results in readers. Empathy and the Novel engages with neuroscience and contemporary psychological research on empathy, bringing affect to the center of cognitive literary studies'' scrutiny of narrative fiction. Drawing on narrative theory, literary history, philosophy, and contemporary scholarship in discourse processing, Keen brin
Trade ReviewThis work's forte is its willingness to range across a series of disciplines and to locate itself at the interconnection between science and literature. Well illustrated...It is an extremely stimulating, clearly written and accessible work which will be of interest to scholars of literature, psychology and neuroscience alike. * Alison E. Martin, Anglistik: International Journal of English Studies *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Preface 1: Contemporary Perspectives on Empathy 2: The Literary Career of Empathy 3: Readers' Empathy 4: Empathy in the Marketplace 5: Authors' Empathy 6: Contesting Empathy Appendix: A Collection of Hypotheses about Narrative Empathy Work Cited Index
