Textual sources of Embodied Literary Reading (original) (raw)

Abstract

Literary works can be analyzed from the viewpoint of how frequently, how systematically, and at what level they engage the reader in somatic activation and imagery. Researchers need to (a) identify text cues that (co-)produce embodied effects and (b) evaluate their distinct somatization profiles. This paper surveys embodied simulation, a scene-bound effect lending itself to a textual approach most straightforwardly. After charting the wider terrain of literary somatization I shall single out two broad categories of cues for scene-bound effects (whereas global effects like suspense and “emergent” reader specific effects like dissatisfaction tend to elude linguistic analysis, so I won’t have much to say about them): My first focus addresses canonical imagery, which, by and large, subserves the functions of “being there” and character empathy. It spans descriptions of objects, persons, actions, and interactions in the storyworld, but also inner experience, i.e. pain, proprioception, and visceral affect. Under a second – in fact overlapping – heading, figurative language deserves attention. It comprises force-dynamic metaphors that cue our understanding of the causality of affect, psychodynamics, and protagonist interaction. Metaphors that augment already established simulative imagery by gestalt effects (double-projection, etc.) add to this. My overall aim is to pinpoint analytic hot spots by discussing the cue-effect relationship of some thirty linguistic devices with a view to case-studies and comparative analyses of “engagement profiles” of texts.