Feelings in Literature

Abstract

In this article it is argued that feelings are all important to the function of literature. In contradiction to music that is concerned with the inwardness of humankind, literature has, because of language, the capacity to create fictional worlds that in many respects are similar to and related to the life world within which we live. One of the most important reasons for our emotional engagement in literature is our empathy with others and our constant imagining and hypothesizing on possible developments in our interactions with them. Hence, we understand and engage ourselves in fictional worlds. It is further claimed and exemplified, how poetic texts are very good at rhetorically engage and manipulate our feelings. Finally, with reference to the important work of Ellen Dissanayake, it is pointed out that the first kind of communication in which we engage, that between mother and infant, is a kind of speech that positively engages the infant in a dialogue with the mother by means of poetic devices.

Feelings, Imagination and Self-Understanding

“…De Sousa (1987, p. 182) argues that paradigmatic scenarios, responsible for exposing us to the vocabulary of emotions, in certain cultures, are reviewed, examined and refined by literature. For what concerns us here, the theory of the emotions of Nussbaum (1990Nussbaum ( , 2001, for example, exploits the fact that the psychological and moral significance of emotions can be expressed and understood in a special way through art, especially literature (Johansen 2010). Literature-at least a certain type of literature-requires, in its own fulfillment as work of art that the people get involved with the narrative not only cognitively, but especially emotionally.…”

“…Literature-at least a certain type of literature-requires, in its own fulfillment as work of art that the people get involved with the narrative not only cognitively, but especially emotionally. Johansen (2010) suggests that there is something specific in how literature deals with emotions. And that it would be connected directly to the role that language plays in literature.…”

“…The propositional content of the novel and the plot that Austen uses to express this content lead us to experience a sequence of emotions, although we know that the characters and their actions in this novel are fictitious. Johansen (2010) writes:…”

“…In 'Feelings in Literature ' Johansen (2010) presents a promising argument about both a semiotic treatment of feelings as to how emotions are important to the literature. His semiotic perspective suggests a shift from a strictly scientificbiological focus on the problem of emotions to an inquiry into the meaning of emotions: what role do they have in the way we understand our lives?…”

Symbolic Objects as Sediments of the Intersubjective Stream of Feelings

“…In some way, it is an imaginary re-creation of aspects of the life world. Johansen (2010) argues that empathy is a key for understanding feelings in literature since the reader has the "ability to feel and understand the emotional reactions of the others (i.e. the characters of a novel) and share them" (p. 189).…”