See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/284209469 Effects of "Literariness" on Emotions and on Empathy and Reflection After Reading Article in Psychology of Aesthetics Creativity and the Arts · January 2016 DOI: 10.1037/aca0000041 CITATIONS READS 2 228 1 author: Emy Koopman previously: Erasmus University Rotterdam; currently: independent 14 PUBLICATIONS 61 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE All content following this page was uploaded by Emy Koopman on 17 December 2015. Erasmus University Digital Repository The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. provided by View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk CORE brought to you by EFFECTS OF LITERARINESS ON EMOTIONS, EMPATHY AND REFLECTION [AUTHOR VERSION] E. M. Koopman, Erasmus University Rotterdam (
[email protected]) Effects of “Literariness” on Emotions and on Empathy and Reflection After Reading Literature can give standards and pass on deep knowledge, incarnated in language, in narrative. Literature can train, and exercise, our ability to weep for those who are not us or ours. These are the words of Susan Sontag (2007, p. 205) and she is certainly not the only one who has expressed a belief in the power of literary texts. Ever since Aristotle’s Poetics (n.d.), countless critics and academics have made claims concerning the ethical potential of narrative drama and poetic language, particularly when it comes to empathy (e.g., Booth, 1988; De Botton, 1997; Nussbaum, 1995; Rorty; 1989), and reflection (e.g., Althusser, 1980; Bronzwaer, 1986; Habermas, 1983; Nussbaum, 2001). As Nussbaum (1995) has argued, the type of imagination triggered by literary reading teaches readers to walk a mile in a stranger’s shoes, helping them realize how others feel (empathy).