The Lazy Mindreader: viewpoint complexity and embedding in literature
Max van Duijn (University of Leiden)
Novels, plays, and other works of fiction expose the emotions and thoughts of one or more characters. Various researchers have argued that they therefore put a strong claim on their readers’ capacity to deal with higher-order mindreading/theory of mind. For example, cognitive literary scholar Lisa Zunshine has argued that in order to understand and appreciate Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway readers have to process that “Woolf intends us to recognize [...] that Richard is aware that Hugh wants Lady Bruton and Richard to think that because the makers of the pen believe that it will never wear out, the editor of the Times will respect and publish the ideas recorded by this pen…” (Zunshine, 2006: 33). The current talk scrutinises this view, thereby discussing examples from Mrs Dalloway as well as from Shakespeare’s Othello and Nabokov’s Lolita. It will be argued that insights from the cognitive sciences should not only inform practices of literary analysis, but also the other way around: current theoretical models of mindreading/theory of mind can benefit from the study of how complex viewpoints are constructed in literary discourse.
[English Literature]