Beyond words: Exploring the embodied nature of reading fiction.

Abstract

Reading literary fiction is often referred to as a cognitive or reflective process. This study, however, shows that reading relies on a bodily and affective engagement with the text that must be viewed as a presupposition for interpretation. The article examines personally significant experiences of reading fiction through phenomenological interviews and analysis. It reveals a general structure for this type of experience, which consists of the following constitutive elements: (a) bodily and affective engagement, (b) immersion, (c) identification, and (d) reflections on and imaginings of possibilities. The study discusses these empirical findings through the eyes of Merleau-Ponty to ground the general structure in theoretical concepts that considers the relationship between body and psyche. We show that the concept of embodied communication can ground our understanding of personally significant reading experiences empirically and theoretically by considering the affective, prereflective, and existential dimensions of the communication with the text. In addition, the study shows how reflections on the literature rest upon embodied identification and different modes of imagining. These processes further involve recognizing both familiar and unfamiliar aspects of the text, which paves the way for an alteration of subjectivity by prereflectively and reflectively providing the reader an expanded understanding of herself, others, and the world. This process can be described as the subject’s experience of getting in touch with an embodied experiential truth, which lies in the connection between the reader and the text, revealing something meaningful about both in the encounter.