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Joycean Text/Empathic Reader: A Modest Contribution to Literary Neuroaesthetics

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Cognitive Joyce

Part of the book series: Cognitive Studies in Literature and Performance ((CSLP))

Abstract

From the visual to the articulatory, from the rhythmical to the affective, and from the somesthetic to the spiritual, Stephen Dedalus’ poetic maturing in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man invites us to travel the paths leading from body to mind and from mind to body. How does Joyce’s writing formulate such an invitation? And how does the reader’s neurophysiological, imitative body respond to it? It is through a neuroaesthetic conception of reading as an embodied performance relying on empathic resonance and sensorimotor simulation that I propose to explore how the Joycean text reconfigures the reader’s sensorimotor experience.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Université Sorbonne-Nouvelle, Paris, France

    Pierre-Louis Patoine

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  1. Pierre-Louis Patoine
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Nîmes / Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3 (EMMA), Montpellier, France

    Sylvain Belluc

  2. University of Nantes, Nantes, France

    Valérie Bénéjam

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Patoine, PL. (2018). Joycean Text/Empathic Reader: A Modest Contribution to Literary Neuroaesthetics. In: Belluc, S., Bénéjam, V. (eds) Cognitive Joyce. Cognitive Studies in Literature and Performance. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71994-8_10

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