IV. Perspectives on Emotion and Literature
IV. 1 Recent Discussion of Emotions in the Humanities
In his article for the interdisciplinary Handbook of Emotions (2000), the film and media scholar Ed S. Tan tries to define the ‘contribution of humanities to the study of
emotion’ (Tan 2000, pp. 116-134). He sees his own and other scholars’ affect-theoretical work in the line of a long tradition as he writes, “the analysis of style in relation to emotion in the reader or hearer has been the domain of classical rhetoric”
(ibid., p. 125). From Aristotle and Plato on, assumptions have been made upon the presumed effects of literary and music style, and the emotional responses they cause in the audience. In the past two decades an increasing number of studies in the
humanities have tried to reveal more of the actual functioning of the emotional experience of art and its psychological and (neuro-) physiological background.162 At the same time, neuro and cognitive scientists and psychologists alike grew ever more
161 Both of these accounts, Colin Radford’s theory of paradox (1975) and Katja Mell-mann’s surrogate theory (2006a; 2000b), will be introduced below in detail.
162 With regard to the overall subject of this book, research on reader responses to fiction will primarily be taken into consideration. Ed S. Tan in particular, though, assumes the general applicability of results from film studies to the realm of literary studies with regard to issues of reception (cf. Tan 1994a; 1994b; 1996; Tan/Frijda 1999).
interested in the ways in which artefacts evoke emotions.163 Leaving aside numeric details such as the actual percentage of emotions evoked by texts, films, music, paintings and other forms of art (Tan quotes studies reporting a total of 7%; ibid., p. 117), the question is, whether ‘real’ emotions and ‘aesthetic’ emotions are identical or at least similar, or whether they are entirely different and distinct from each other.
Many studies deal in fact with the (presumed) differences and commonalities between emotions aroused by real-life events and by cultural artefacts. In 1975, Colin Radford most prominently articulated the basic philosophical problem especially with the commonalities with the question: “How Can We Be Moved by the Fate of Anna Karenina ?” (Radford / Weston 1975)164 Radford’s basic argument is that emotional responses to artefacts are irrational, since a reader reacts emotionally to fictional events as if they were real events although s / he fully knows about their fictionality. Robert Yanal summarises the ‘Paradox Set’ at the heart of Radford’s argument in his 1999 study on Paradoxes of Emotion and Fiction (simultaneously providing insight into the sometimes awkward terminology of affect and emotion theories):
The Paradox Set
1. Some people (we’ll call them emoters) on occasion experience emotions toward characters or situations they take to be fictions.
2. Any person experiences an emotion only if he believes that the object of his emotion both exists and exhibits at least some of the emotion inducing properties specific to that emotion.
3. No emoter who takes the object of his emotion to be fiction believes that the object of his emotion exists and exhibits any emotion inducing properties.
163 In this context, the psychologists Nico Frijda and Klaus R. Scherer certainly play an outstanding role, not least due to the comprehensiveness of their texts. Frijda paid particular attention to those emotions induced by film and literature (cf. Frijda 1989;
Tan/Frijda 1999; Frijda [2007]). Scherer most prominently developed the so-called Component Process Model (C P M) for the valuation and measurement of emotions within their psychological and physiological framework. His research includes studies on the emotions induced by music and their measurement (cf. Scherer 2004; Scherer/ Zentner 2001;
Zentner/Grandjean/Scherer 2008).
164 Within the limited context of this study, only a small portion of this vast field can be presented. For a wider perspective, see the aforementioned article by Ed Tan (2000) and the introduction to one of the very few anthologies on the subject, Emotion and the Arts by Mette Hjort and Sue Laver (1997). The latter also provides insight into the different ‘schools’
of emotion theories up until the late 1990s, including the differences and commonalities between cognitive and social constructivist approaches and the so-called ‘critical paradox’
this opposition causes (Hjort/Laver 1997, pp. 3-19).
Propositions 2 and 3 logically imply that emotion toward fiction is an impossibility, and yet proposition 1 claims emotions toward fiction to be an occasional
occurrence. We thus have yet cannot have emotions toward fiction.
(Yanal 1999, p. 11)
Yanal compares the effect of Radford’s question, and the long lasting discussion that succeeded it, to the search for solutions of the mind-body problem and the free-will question, making it one of the central issues of contemporary philosophy (ibid., pp.
ixsq.).165 As opposed to the emotion-eliciting effects of style, though, said paradox is
“not one of the perennial problems of philosophy ‘as old as Plato.’ […] Neither Plato nor Aristotle incorporates recognition of fictionality in their theories of mimetic art”
(ibid., p. 13). Plato does not breach the issue since he assumes that the audience takes an appearance for reality, not fiction; the emotional reaction to art is therefore
comparable to the reaction of a mirror image as real.166 Aristotle’s theory by contrast is largely based on the idea that legends mostly refer to historical events, or that tragic plays emanate a plausibility that derives from their resemblance to real events.
Reacting emotionally to works of art is therefore not only a reaction to their tragic inevitability, but also a reaction to their probability.167 For Yanal, a possible solution of the paradox of emotion and fiction moves along these lines:
We don’t, appearances aside, pity Anna Karenina but pity some actuality that Tolstoy’s novel implies; we are playing a game of make-believe and our pity isn’t real pity. Yet each of these explanations accepts the necessity of belief for emotion. (ibid, p. 159)
Although many a critic has claimed to provide the solution of the paradox of fiction, any of these are merely suggestions of ‘one possible’ solution. In his insightful article on “Emotion in Response to Art” (1997), Jerrold Levinson differentiates between not less than seven main solution types. These are the non-intentionalist solution, the suspension-of-disbelief solution, the surrogate-object solution, which can be further
165 Radford has repeatedly published on this subject, mostly in response to criticism, cf. Colin Radford: “Tears and Fiction,” in: Philosophy 52 (1977), 208-213; idem: “The
Essential Anna,” in: Philosophy 54 (1979), 390-394; idem: “Stuffed Tigers: A Reply to H.O.
Mounce,” in: Philosophy 57 (1982), 529-532; idem: “Replies to Three Critics,” in: Philosophy 64 (1989), 93-97. The other voices in this debate are, amongst others, Barrie Paskins: “On Being Moved by Anna Karenina and Anna Karenina,” in: Philosophy 52 (1977), 344-347; H.O.
Mounce: “Art and Real Life,” in: Philosophy 55 (1980), 183-192; Kendall Walton: “Fearing Fictions,” in: Journal of Philosophy 75 (1978), 5-27; idem: Mimesis as Make-Believe.
Cambridge, M A 1990; Peter Lamarque: “How Can We Fear and Pity Fictions?” in: British Journal of Aesthetics 21/4 (1981), 291-304.
166 The threefold formation of artistic appearance (from God to the craftsman to the artist) is described in Book X of the Republic.
167 Cf. Aristotle, Poetics IX (1451b).
differentiated into three subversions, one in which the surrogate-object is the artefact itself, another in which the artistic or ideational content of the artefact serves as object.
A third version Levinson calls shadow-object proposal, in which “the objects of response are real individuals or phenomena from the subject’s life experience, ones resembling the persons or events of the fiction, and of which the fiction puts the subject covertly or indirectly in mind” (Levinson 1997, p. 23). These ‘early’ surrogate theories need to stay in mind with regard to the more recent one presented by Katja Mellmann.
A fourth option to solve the paradox of fiction is the antijudgmentalist solution, contested by the surrogate-belief solution. The sixth solution, the irrationalist solution, refers back to the initiator of the debate, Colin Radford, and finally solution number seven, the make-believe, or imaginary solution, introduced by Kendall Walton (1990) and prominently supported by Gregory Currie (1990), provides according to Levinson “probably the best resolution to the paradox of fiction” (ibid., p. 27).168 The make-believe solution differentiates between ‘real’ emotions and ‘make-believe’
emotions evoked by artefacts. This second type of emotions feels considerably like the
‘real’ sort, yet it does not have the same motivational and behavioural consequences.
Therefore, readers as well as other consumers of artefacts provide two very
comparable, yet essentially different strands of emotions. Two aspects of the critique of make-believe emotions in response to fiction point into the direction the discussion has taken further since 1997:
What makes some philosophers reluctant to accept that our emotional relations to fictional objects might be of a different stripe from our emotional relations to objects we take as existent (as the make-believe theory insists) is the sense that, to the person experiencing them, they seem very much the same—they feel the same, we might say. But as has been observed, there is more to emotional conditions than feelings. Cognitive and conative commitments play a role in the identity of many, though not all, emotions; thus, if those commitments vary, so may the emotion that is present (ibid.).
The first aspect is the subjective experience of literary induced emotions. The fact that they feel similar to emotions induced by ‘real’ stimuli appears due to a somewhat hazy terminology. One might argue that self-assessment of personal feelings is per
definitionem debatable. Taking aside possible effects of purposeful usage (which is rather unlikely within the realm of reader response), a profound depiction of one’s own emotional landscape generally demands a fair amount of self-reflection, and distance to both the event and the emotional experience. Especially with little or no
168 With regard to the further development of this discussion, only the make-believe solution will be discussed in further detail. For the summaries of the other six proposed solutions to the paradox of fiction, see Levinson 1997, pp. 23-27.
temporal space between the reading experience and the report, aspects of personal and social communicability of the emotions experienced also affect such statements. In the case of shame, for instance, self-disclosure during or immediately after the reading is difficult to valuate, since this particular feeling has an enormously secretive potential, as was discussed at length in the main part of this study. The circumstance that none of the subjects reports feelings of embarrassment or shame does not mean that a stimulus material, i.e. a literary text, did not evoke this type of emotion.
Only very recently, literary scholars attempt to access reader responses through advanced neuropsychological experimental set-ups. By avoiding the
imponderability of self-assessment, reliable data is to be achieved through the analysis of eye movements during reading, but also by the usage of neuroscientific methods such as fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging).169
The second animadversion on the make-believe theory that became a central argument in emotion studies is the aspect of ‘cognitive and conative commitment,’ as Levinson puts it, and its variation between individual emotions. Over the years the term of ‘interest’ was widely established for the description and discussion of the driving force behind (textual) perception. In an article from 1986, cognitive scientists Suzanne Hidi and William Baird brought up “Interestingness—A neglected variable in discourse processing” (Hidi /Baird 1986).170 In an article on “Story processing as an emotion episode,” Ed Tan claims the transferability of the term to the realm of literary reception:
Interest is the dominant emotion in story processing. It lends unity to the episodic emotional response, and is responsible for a net positive hedonic tone of emotion.
Many emotions in story processing are by themselves unpleasant. The fear and disgust called forth by a horror thriller or the sorrow produced by a melodramatic story are bearable, and even sought after, when they occur within an episode showing some promise of closure—or, in other words, when they are accompanied by interest. However, interest is not just a byproduct of other emotions. It
strengthens all other emotions. (Tan 1994a, p. 178)
With reference to the aforementioned psychologist Nico Frijda, Tan unfolds an entire semantic field around the term of interest. The terminological set-up of ‘concern,’
‘appraisal’ and ‘interest’ is still valid, although the usage of the term ‘appraisal’ in
169 In the context of the so-called Cluster of Excellence Languages of Emotion at the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, several projects currently work within this realm. Two of these are: Arthur M. Jacobs, Gisela Klann-Delius, Winfried Menninghaus et al. on “Affective and aesthetic processes involved in reading” and Thomas Jacobsen and Winfried
Menninghaus on “Aesthetic modulation of affective valence: Pleasure in disgust and related phenomena.” See www.languages-of-emotion.de for more detailed information.
170 One of the authors has recently published another article on the subject only two years ago, which proves that this term remains topical (cf. Hidi 2006).
particular has been subject to alterations since (in case of competing denominations, these will be clarified and explained within the context of the following discussion).
The basic idea behind these terms is that the arousal of emotions and perception in general follow comparable mechanisms and are intertwined.171 As for concern, “in emotion, ‘concerns’ represent what is important to the individual. Stable motives, standards, and attitudes are instances of concerns. More generally, concerns are internal representations of preferred states of the world” (ibid.). According to Tan Frijda goes as far as to call the emotion apparatus a “concern realization system,”
(ibid., with reference to Frijda 1987) in which the maintenance or the re-establishment of the ‘preferred state of the world’ has first priority. The term of ‘appraisal’ comes into play during the actual process of an emotion.172 “Different emotions are characterized by different, even unique, appraisal and action patterns. The result of appraisal is an appreciation of the situation in terms of its personal significance. It does not have to be conscious.” (Tan 1994a, p. 168)
At this point precisely the different notions of appraisal manifest which circulate currently. In the field of psychology, especially in its neuroscientific orienta-tion, the temporal realm covered by the appraisal process grows ever smaller.
Meanwhile, researchers position the sequences of appraisal and reappraisal of an emotion episode within milliseconds after the occurrence of the stimulus (cf. Scherer 2005). The conclusion that appraisal ‘does not have to be conscious’ almost has been turned into its opposite; it is assumed now that emotional appraisal in its early and crucial phases is essentially unconscious. Nevertheless, in different realms of research, not only within the field of psychology and psychiatry, but also in the humanities, appraisal is still described with regard to any process of situational evaluation. The connection to the realm of literature lies again within the cognitive commonalities between story processing in general, and the arousal of emotions in particular. “Stories have to be processed cognitively in order to have any effect at all, and emotional effects are no exception to the rule.” (Tan 1994a, p. 167) This approach is by no means
conflicting the more recent theories of appraisal and the formation of emotions. To
‘process cognitively’ does not mean to ‘process consciously.’ To that extent, earlier studies such as Frijda’s or Tan’s that use the somewhat ‘dated’ definition of appraisal can well be read productively in connection to very recent research such as Scherer’s,
171 Meanwhile, psychologists and neuroscientists have approved this approach, or rather its contraposition. It is now widely assumed that emotion facilitates perception, cf.
Phelps/Ling/Carrasco 2006 who also provide a concise survey of the terrain. For a somewhat shorter discussion cf. Zeelenberg/ Wagenmakers/Rotteveel 2006. As for the general
integration of emotion and cognition, cf. Gray/Braver/Raichle 2002.
172 For a concise survey of cognitive theories on appraisal up to the early 1990s, cf.
Tan 1994a, p. 167.
or other neuroscientific emotion studies that use the term in a much more restricted manner.
Two aspects of Tan’s appraisal usage are relevant in the context of this chapter.
First of all, his application of the term is somewhat exemplary for studies of emotional responses to artefacts, especially to literary texts, in the humanities. Secondly, it offers the connecting point to the concrete affect-theoretical discussion of shame as narrative strategy that follows in the second part of this chapter. Tan presumes “an intimate relationship between processes in comprehension, as accounted for by current models of story understanding on the one hand, and emotion on the other.” (Tan 1994a, p.
169) Based on this presumption, which again relies heavily upon the commonalities between affective and cognitive processes, Tan develops the so-called emotional meaning structure of a text, EMS (cf. ibid.).
This structure describes the story’s ‘functional representation in emotion,’ as opposed to its ‘cognitive representation as modelled in current story understanding programs,’ (ibid.) i.e. as pronounced via self-assessment. Even more interesting than the structure itself are the three central appraisal elements that it is composed of:
“relevance, the reality of story events, and the imagined role of the reader in them as the presence as a witness in the fictional world” (ibid., p. 170).Relevance means the relevance of story events to concerns of the reader. Once the reader’s concerns are met, his or her primary interest is a satisfactory closure of the story’s problems and
adversities. The aspect of reality of the story events basically reaches back to Aristotle once again and his argument of plausibility: emotional responses to fiction are also responses to the verisimilitude of the events described. The third point of witness emotion, finally, points both back to results of the main part of this study and thus towards the next section of this part.173 The bottom line of Tan’s approach is that the appraisal structures of real-world and fictional events are comparable, and that based on that, “emotion in story processing can be considered an emotion like all other emotions in the reality of daily life.” (Tan 1994a, p. 184) At this point, Tan clearly argues against make-believe theories; moreover, his argument paves the way for the assumption that the boundaries between literary and reality bound emotions are
173 Recent theories of appraisal and emotional evaluation, such as the so-called stimulus evaluation check (SE C), also refer heavily to this older model. Sander et al.
differentiate between “four appraisal objectives concerning the major types or classes of information that an organism needs to adaptively react to a salient event: (1) How relevant is this event for me? Does it directly affect me or my social reference group? (relevance); (2) What are the implications or consequences of this event and how do these affect my well-being and my immediate or long-term goals? (implications); (3) How well can I cope with or adjust to these consequences? (coping potential); (4) What is the significance of this event with respect to my self-concept and to social norms and values (normative significance).”
(Sander/Grandjean/Scherer 2005, p. 319)
permeable. This again leads back to the affect-theoretical assumption of the study at hand. The concluding part returns to the presumption obtained that shame is an affect that can be transferred from the literary character to the reader in essentially similar form. For this purpose, Hilge Landweer’s theory of vicarious feelings, co-shame and vicarious shame, is combined with results of Katja Mellmann’s evolutionary
permeable. This again leads back to the affect-theoretical assumption of the study at hand. The concluding part returns to the presumption obtained that shame is an affect that can be transferred from the literary character to the reader in essentially similar form. For this purpose, Hilge Landweer’s theory of vicarious feelings, co-shame and vicarious shame, is combined with results of Katja Mellmann’s evolutionary