Some time ago, Coleridge suggested that both dreaming and literary reading prompt people to perceive things in freshly vital and compelling ways. Correspondingly, we have found that people who report dream-induced self-perceptual depth also read literary texts in ways that deepen self-understanding (Kuiken & Miall, 1994). So, with a colleague from the Department of English, David Miall, I have been examining the self-transformative potential of literary reading (see Reader Response for full documentation of this project). I have also begun articulation of a theory of expressive reading that integrates empirical studies of literary reading with phenomenological understandings that derive especially from Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Gendlin (Kuiken, 2008, in press).

Dufrenne (1973) echoed Coleridge’s conviction that feeling is the vehicle of self-implication through which literary reading can “exile and uproot us from those habits which are the embodiment of the superficial self” (p. 408). In our research, we have examined this possibility at two levels. First, we have provided evidence that stylistic variations in literary texts (called foregrounding) prompt the ‘defamiliarization’ of familiar referents (Miall & Kuiken, 1994; Miall & Kuiken, 1999). More specifically, foregrounding evokes aesthetic feelings that initially unsettle conventional conceptions and then help to guide the reconceptualization of textual referents (Miall & Kuiken, 1995a). Second, we have found that, within a form of reading that has many of the classic features of aesthetic experience (Kuiken, 1998; Kuiken & Miall, 2001), self-perceptual change occurs through a succession of evocative reading moments. These moments involve (1) aesthetic feelings, as well as narrative feelings in response to situations and events in the text; (2) blurred boundaries between the self and the narrator or story characters, suggestive of metaphors of personal identification (Cohen, 1999); and (3) active and iterative modification of an emergent affective theme (Sikora, Kuiken, & Miall, 1998; Kuiken, Miall, & Sikora, 2004). For some readers, these iterative modifications give literary reading a fugal form, manifest as thematic developments that move toward saturation, richness, and depth. We call the felt sense of being ‘moved’ in this way self-modifying feeling (Miall & Kuiken, 2002).

We are studying individual differences in the occurrence of self-modifying feelings during literary reading. First, we have developed and validated an instrument, called the Literary Response Questionnaire (LRQ), which assesses individual differences in readers’ orientation toward literary texts (Miall & Kuiken, 1995b). The LRQ includes a scale that reflects the extent to which self-modifying feelings occur during literary reading; it has helped to identify those for whom reading facilitates shifts in self-perceptual depth, especially under experimental conditions that induce what is traditionally called the ‘aesthetic attitude’ (Kuiken, Miall, Busink, & Cey, in preparation). Second, we have found that absorption (Tellegen & Atkinson, 1974) is a personality trait that predicts the occurrence of self-modifying feelings during reading. Our evidence suggests that the relation between absorption and self-perceptual shifts is mediated by the interacting combination of affective theme variations and metaphors of personal identification (Kuiken, Phillips, Gregus, Miall, Verbitsky, & Tonkonogy, 2004), rather than mere emotional involvement. Third, parallel to our findings with dreams, we have found that bereaved individuals who read poetry concerning loss are likely to experience shifts in self-perception, especially when they remain depressed about their loss after several months (Kuiken, Sikora, & Miall, in preparation; Kuiken & Sharma, in preparation). We are now extending that work by examining how reading at the ‘sublime’ tragic-poetic limits of expressibilty can transform personal meanings following loss.

 Publications: Expressive Reading and Self-Perceptual Depth

Kuiken, D. (2008). A theory of expressive reading. In S. Zyngier, M. Bortolussi, A. Chesnokova, & J. Auracher (eds.), Directions in Empirical Literary Studies, in press.

Abstract. Whether justified by the “affective fallacy” or the “death of the subject,” challenges to expressivist theories of literary reading have been persuasive. What seems lacking is theory that respects the fragility of felt meanings and the vitality found in their uncovering. Addressing this lack requires articulation of how feeling expression unfolds over time, has the character of disclosure, and simultaneously brings feelings and their intentional objects to presence. Without detracting from expressive disclosure, it is also critical to acknowledge the limits of expressibility—and that expressive reading gestures toward the mood of that which cannot be brought to presence. [Return to Text]

Kuiken, D., Phillips, L., Gregus, M., Miall, D.S., Verbitsky, M., Tonkonogy, A. (2004). Locating self-modifying feelings within literary reading. Discourse Processes, 38(2), 267-286.

Abstract. Self-modifying feelings during literary reading were studied in relation to the personality trait, absorption. Participants read a short story, described their experience of three striking or evocative passages in the story, and completed the Tellegen Absorption Scale (Tellegen, 1982). Compared to readers with either low or moderate absorption scores, those high in absorption were more likely to report affective theme variations and self-perceptual shifts, especially during an emotionally complicated portion of the story. Further analyses indicated that, rather than emotional involvement per se, the relation between absorption and self-perceptual shifts was mediated by the interaction between theme variations and a style of expressive reflection called metaphors of personal identification. [Return to Text]

Kuiken, D., Miall, D.S., & Sikora, S. (2004). Forms of self-implication in literary reading. Poetics Today, 25(2), 171-203.

Abstract. Literary reading has the capacity to implicate the self and deepen self-understanding, but little is known about how and when these effects occur. The present paper examines two forms of self-implication in literary reading. In one form, which functions like simile, there is explicitly recognized similarity between personal memories and some aspect of the world of the text (A is like B). In another form, which functions like metaphor, the reader becomes identified with some aspect of the world of the text, usually the narrator or a character (A is B). These forms of self-implication can be differentiated within readers’ open-ended comments about their reading experiences. The results of a phenomenological study indicate that such metaphors of personal identification are a pivotal feature of expressive enactment, a type of reading experience marked by (1) explicit descriptions of feelings in response to situations and events in the text; (2) blurred boundaries between oneself and the narrator of the text; and (3) active and iterative modification of an emergent affective theme. The self-modifying feelings characteristic of expressive enactment give it a fugal form, manifest as thematic developments that move toward saturation, richness, and depth. The results of an experimental study suggest that expressive enactment occurs frequently among individuals who remain depressed about a significant loss that occurred some time ago. Together with the phenomenological study, this research suggests that expressive enactment is a form of reading that penetrates and alters reader’s understanding of everyday life, especially following a personal crisis. [Return to Text]

Miall, D.S., Kuiken, D. (2002). A feeling for fiction: Becoming what we behold. Poetics, 30, 221-241.

Abstract. Feelings during literary reading can be characterized at four levels. First, feelings such as enjoyment, pleasure, or the satisfaction of reading are reactions to an already interpreted text (Hansson, 1990). While providing an incentive to sustain reading, these feelings play no significant role in the distinctively literary aspects of text interpretation. Second, feelings such as empathy or sympathy with an author, narrator, or narrative figure are involved in the interpretive processes by which a representation of the fictional world is developed and engaged (Kneepens & Zwaan, 1994). Although serving an important mimetic role within text comprehension, these feelings, too, do not derive from the distinctively literary aspects of reading. Third, feelings of fascination, interest, or intrigue are an initial moment in readers’ response to the formal components of literary texts (narrative, stylistic, or generic). Although serving to capture and hold readers’ attention (Miall & Kuiken, 1994), these aesthetic reactions only anticipate a fourth level of feeling that is the main focus of the present discussion: the modifying powers of feeling. We propose that aesthetic and narrative feelings interact to produce metaphors of personal identification that modify self-understanding. We also argue that the concept of catharsis (the conflict of tragic feelings identified by Aristotle) identifies one particular form of a more general pattern in which aesthetic and narrative feelings evoked during reading interact to modify the reader. We illustrate these interactions with examples from two studies of readers’ responses to a Sean O’Faoláin short story. [Return to Text]

Kuiken, D., & Miall, D.S (2001). Numerically aided phenomenology: Procedures for investigating categories of experience. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research [On-line Journal], 2(1). Available at: http://qualitative-research.net/fqs/fqs-eng.htm.

Abstract: Complementarity between quantitative and qualitative methods often implies that qualitative methods are a step toward quantitative precision or that quantitative and qualitative methods provide mutually validating “triangulation.” However, there also is unacknowledged quantification within the type of analytic induction that is considered pivotal in qualitative thinking. We attempt to justify this claim and present a form of phenomenological analysis that invokes numeric algorithms. Numerically aided phenomenology is a procedure for systematically describing categories (kinds, or types) of lived experience within a set of experiential narratives. In a comparative reading, recurrent meaning expressions are identified and paraphrased. Then judgments about their presence or absence are used to create matrices representing the profiles of meanings expressed in each narrative. Finally, cluster analytic algorithms are used to group these experiential narratives according to the similarities in their profiles of meaning expressions. In this way, categories of similar experiential narratives—and their distinctive attributes—can be identified. Rather than an essentialist conception of the qualities defining classes, in numerically aided phenomenology classes are defined by more-or-less invariant attributes, i.e., classes are formed such that members share a large number of expressed meanings, although no single meaning (or set thereof) is necessary or sufficient for class membership. [Return to Text]

Miall, D.S. & Kuiken, D. (1999). What is literariness? Three components of literary reading. Discourse Processes, 28, 121-138.

Abstract. It is now widely maintained that the concept of ‘literariness’ has been critically examined and found deficient. Prominent postmodern literary theorists have argued that there are no special characteristics that distinguish literature from other texts. Similarly, cognitive psychology has often subsumed literary understanding within a general theory of discourse processing. However, a review of empirical studies of literary readers reveals traces of literariness that appear irreducible to either of these explanatory frameworks. Our analysis of readers’ responses to several literary texts (short stories and poems) indicates processes beyond the explanatory reach of current situation models. Such findings suggest a three-component model of literariness involving foregrounded textual features, readers’ defamiliarizing responses to them, and the consequent modification of personal meanings. [Return to Text]

Kuiken, D. (1998). Understanding the depth metaphor in aesthetic experience: Pressing the limits of psychological inquiry. In W. Smythe (ed.), Toward a psychology of persons. New York: Erlbaum, 101-117.

Abstract. Depersonalization in psychological research is the failure to locate and understand expressions of the depth of human experience. Defined in this way, much depends upon how the depth metaphor is articulated. The explication of that metaphor in the context of aesthetic experience requires consideration of how the reality of a possible world is constituted in experience, how felt meanings are accentuated and transformed, and how the remembered self attains existential inclusiveness. [Return to Text]

Miall, D.S., & Kuiken, D. (1995b). Aspects of literary response: A new questionnaire. Research in the Teaching of English, 29, 37-58.

Abstract. A newly developed instrument, the Literary Response Questionnaire (LRQ), provides scales that measure seven different aspects of readers’ orientation toward literary texts: Insight, Empathy, Imagery Vividness, Leisure Escape, Concern with Author, Story-Driven Reading, and Rejection of Literary Values. The present report presents evidence that each of these scales possesses satisfactory internal consistency, retest reliability, and factorial validity. Also, a series of five studies provided preliminary evidence that each scale may be located in a theoretically plausible network of relations with certain global personality traits (e.g., Absorption), with aspects of cognitive style (e.g., Regression in Service of the Ego), and with some of the learning skills that are relevant to effective work in the classroom (e.g., Elaborative Processing). In a variety of teaching and research settings, the LRQ may be a useful measure of individual differences in readers’ orientation toward literary texts. [Return to Text]

Miall, D.S., & Kuiken, D. (1995a). Feeling and the three phases of literary response. In G. Rusch (Ed.), Empirical approaches to literature. Siegen: LUMIS-Publications, 282-290.

Summary. Novel elements of a literary text, such as foregrounding, unexpected narrative events, or unpredictable narrator interventions, prompt uncertainty and arouse feeling in the reader. To resolve their uncertainty, readers’ feelings guide the retrieval of memories and concepts that provide a context for locating what is uncertain and beginning to resolve it. When such a context is in place, feeling plays a different but equally important role in guiding reader response. Thus, readers repeatedly move through three modes of response: momentary uncertainty due to defamiliarization (phase 1), active search for the conceptual means to contextualize defamiliarized material (phase 2), and them refamiliarization of story material within a new interpretive framework (phase 3). We present evidence of this hypothesized phase sequence from several of our studies with readers of literary short stories. [Return to Text]

Miall, D.S., & Kuiken, D. (1994). Foregrounding, defamiliarization, and affect: Response to literary stories. Poetics, 22, 389-407.

Abstract. The notion that stylistic features of literary texts deautomatize perception is central to a tradition of literary theory from Coleridge, through Shklovsky and Mukarovsky to Van Peer. Stylistic variations, known as foregrounding, hypothetically prompt defamiliarization, evoke feelings, and prolong reading time. These possibilities were tested in four studies in which segment by segment reading times and ratings were collected from readers of a short story. In each study, foregrounded segments of the story were associated with increased reading times, greater strikingness ratings, and greater affect ratings. Response to foregrounding appeared to be independent of literary competence or experience. Reasons for considering readers’ response to foregrounding as a distinctive aspect of interaction with literary texts are discussed. [Return to Text]

Kuiken, D., & Miall, D.S. Extending the poetics of dreams: Dream impact and reader response. Paper presented at the Conference of the Association for the Study of Dreams, Leiden, The Netherlands, July, 1994.

Summary. Results of a factor analytic study suggest the utility of extending the dreams/literature analogy to include their common effects. In both domains, there are individual differences in self-reported insight, empathy, imagery vividness, story-driven understanding, concern with author, leisure escape, and rejection of dream’s/literature’s value. [Return to Text]