Empathy and the Strangeness of Fiction: Readings in French Realism - Paperback

by Maria C. Scott (Author)

Explores how and why narrative fiction engages empathy, including Theory of Mind

• Offers a broad overview of current scientific work on the effects of fiction-reading on empathy, including Theory of Mind
• Provides an original intervention in the field of literary theory, centring on the reflexive properties of the fictional stranger
• Includes stand-alone close readings of three novels by important French authors

This book studies recent psychological findings which suggest that reading fiction cultivates empathy, encouraging us to be critically reflective, suspicious readers as well as participatory, 'naïve' readers. Scott draws on literary theory and close readings to argue that engagement with fictional stories also teaches us to resist uncritical forms of empathy and reminds us of the limitations of our ability to understand other people. The book treats figures of the stranger in Balzac's La Fille aux yeux d'or, Stendhal's Le Rouge et le Noir and Sand's Indiana as emblematic of the strangeness of narrative fiction, both drawing us in and keeping us at a distance.

Back Jacket

'Does fiction train us in empathy? Scott's clever and wonderfully engaging book provides a powerful response to correct the idea of empathy as a simple key to unlock others and instead shows how empathy is a form of seduction. The task of the reader is both to fall for this seduction and to resist it.' Fritz Breithaupt, author of The Dark Sides of Empathy and Provost Professor at Indiana University Explores how and why narrative fiction engages empathy This book takes its point of departure in recent psychological findings which suggest that reading fiction cultivates empathy, including Theory of Mind. Scott draws on literary theory and close readings to argue that engagement with fictional stories also teaches us to resist uncritical forms of empathy and reminds us of the limitations of our ability to understand other people. The book treats figures of the stranger in Balzac's La Fille aux yeux d'or, Stendhal's Le Rouge et le Noir and Sand's Indiana as emblematic of the strangeness of narrative fiction, which both draws us in and keeps us at a distance. Maria C. Scott is Senior Lecturer in French at the University of Exeter. She is the author of Baudelaire's 'Le Spleen de Paris' Shifting Perspectives (2005) and Stendhal's Less-Loved Heroines: Fiction, Freedom, and the Female (2013). Cover image: Interrupted Reading, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, 1865-1875 (c) akg-images Cover design: [EUP logo] edinburghuniversitypress.com ISBN 978-1-4744-6303-4 Barcode

Author Biography

Maria C. Scott is Associate Professor of French Literature and Thought at the University of Exeter. She has published two monographs, Baudelaire's 'Le Spleen de Paris' Shifting Perspectives (Ashgate,2005) and Stendhal's Less-Loved Heroines: Fiction, Freedom, and the Female (Legenda,2013). The latter was published in French translation as Stendhal, la liberté et les héroïnes mal aimées (Classiques Garnier, 2015).The author is generally interested in the identificatory dynamics and blind spots that can affect literary interpretation.