Author Description

"This work seeks to chart what happens in the embodied minds of engaged readers when they read literature. Despite the recent stylistic, linguistic, and cognitive advances that have been made in text-processing methodology and practice, very little is known about this cultural-cognitive process and especially about the role that emotion plays. Burke's theoretical and empirical study focuses on three central issues: the role emotions play in a core cognitive event like literary text processing; the kinds of bodily and emotional responses evoked by literary texts; and the contribution of literary reading to our understanding of the breadth and depth of the oceanic mind. Burke's erudite, lucid exposition of recent affective neuroscience is accessible for those new to the field, but so systematic and learned that even specialists are likely to find it valuable. Burke introduces and synthesizes cutting edge research in a way that provides new insights into literary reading. This is one of the best books in the recent wave of cognitive approaches to literature."