Empathy and the Novel av Suzanne (Broadus Professor of English Broadus Professor of English Washington and Lee University) Keen

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Does 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 altruisticconsequences 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 onempathy, 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 brings