This book develops a new approach to readerly engagement with constellations of characters in the novel. It argues that we have not understood well enough how readers respond to the simple fact that the majority of prose narratives feature many characters who are involved in complex relationships.
The author integrates concepts, insights, and results from the multi-disciplinary field of cognitive and empirical literary studies and reintroduces input from classical literary scholarship. The chapters of this book develop the notion of Multiple Character Scenarios as a new conceptualisation of readers’ mental engagement with constellations of many characters in extended narratives, and they introduce further innovative concepts: a model of the interaction of different dimensions of cognition in literary reading, a differentiated approach to perspectivisation, and a fresh look at genre-related reading expectations. The book concludes with methodological considerations for the empirical study of engagement with character constellations.
Beside discussing theoretical and empirical work from cognitive and empirical literary studies, the argument is illustrated by references to a broad range of examples from the history of the (British) novel. The book will therefore be of interest to literary scholars, narratologists, and everyone interested in narrative engagement from the multidisciplinary field of cognitive and empirical literary studies.
Table of Contents:
List of Figures
List of Table
Acknowledgements
Foreword
Why Another Approach to Literary Character, and Why Does It Have to Be “Integrative”?
1 An Integrative Approach to Complex Narrative Engagement
1.1 The Complexity of Narrative Engagement and the Centrality of Character Constellations
1.2 The Place of Character Engagement in a Multidisciplinary Field of Studies and the Necessity of an Integrative Cognitive Approach
1.3 The Challenge of Integrating Theories, Methodologies, and Methods in the Study of Narrative and Character Engagement
1.4 The Structure of this Book
2 Three Dimensions of Engagement with Character Constellations: Embodiment, Shared Conceptualisations, and Discourse Processing
2.1 Readerly Engagement and a Three- Dimensions Model of Literary Reading
2.2 Dimension A: Experientialities
2.2.1 Social Experientiality in Image Schemas, Force Dynamics, and Conceptual Metaphors
2.2.2 Social Experientiality in Embodied and Enactive Reading
2.3 Dimension B: Shared Conceptualisations and Evaluations of Character Constellations
2.4 Dimension C: Abstract Knowledge – Schemata of Sociality
2.5 Between Resonance and Recognition
3 Multiplicity as a Feature of Narrative and Mind: The One and the Many
3.1 The Human Mind and the Novel are Fundamentally “Interpersonal”
3.2 Aspects of Multiplicity and Relationality in Literary Scholarship
3.3 Reader Cognition and Multiplicity: A First Glance
4 Multiple- Character Scenarios (MSCs) in Narrative Engagement
4.1 Why Character Multiplicity Is Not a Problem but Still Requires an Explanation
4.2 Spatial Mappings and Networks: The Topology of MCSs
4.2.1 The MCS Has Spatial Depth
4.2.2 MCSs Are Composed by Local Networks
4.3 The Quality of Character Links: Mimetic, Thematic, and Synthetics Aspects of MCSs
4.4 Fore- and Backgrounding Dynamics: Shifting Presences in the MCS
4.5 Summary: The Multiple- Character Scenario as a Socio- Literary Affordance Gestalt
5 The Involved Observer: Perspectivisation beyond Immersion and Identification
5.1 Multiple- Character Scenarios and the Paradigmatic Study of Narrative Engagement
5.2 Immersive and Identificatory Reading: Some Qualifications and Two Alternatives
5.3 Perspectivisation Revisited
5.3.1 From Textual Perspective to Readerly Perspectival Imagination
5.3.2 Marked and Unmarked Perspectivity and Multiperspectivity: A Four- Part Distinction
5.4 Readers as Involved Observers: Engagement with MCSs from a Monitor Position
6 Genre and Character Constellations: Relational Reading Expectations
6.1 Genre Theory from Category Classification to Reading Expectations
6.2 The Acquisition and Use of Genre “Knowledge” and the Role of MCSs
6.2.1 The Influence of Genre Schemata
6.2.2 Shared Conceptualisations: Cultural Relationship Models and Generic Chunks
6.2.3 Embodied Relational Reading Expectations
6.3 Conclusion
7 From Theories to Methods: Thoughts on the Empirical Study of MCS Construction
7.1 From Theorising to Testing: The Necessity of Empirical Literary Studies
7.2 Challenges for the Empirical Study of Narrative Engagement and MCS Construction
7.2.1 Complexity and Length of Texts: Issues of Control and Ecological Validity
7.2.2 Concepts and Terms: Issues of Precision
7.3 From Research Interest to Research Strategies: Investigating MCS Construction
References
Index
About the Author :
Ralf Schneider is full professor and chair of English Literature and Co-director of the Aachen Center for Cognitive and Empirical Literary Studies (ACCELS) at RWTH Aachen University, Germany.
