Willie van Peer

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich | LMU · Department I - Germanistik, Komparatistik, Nordistik, Deutsch als Fremdsprache

Poetry originates in social orality: music and voice are fundamental for the way it functions. Important are both the emotional ingredients in poetry as an experience (van Peer and Chesnokova, Experiencing Poetry: A Guidebook to Psychopoetics, London, Bloomsbury, 2022) and the oral and social nature of its delivery. Reading a poem means first and f...

If psychobiography is about historically significant individuals, then Shakespeare certainly fits the bill. His works belong to the most venerable, most studied and most read of world literature. But where is the biography? Can there be psychobiography in the absence of knowledge about meaningful events in the individual’s life? In this chapter Sha...

This chapter analyses the concept of jealousy (as different from envy) in romantic and sexual relationships. It demonstrates that jealousy is both logically and empirically untenable, as it is: (1) a self-contradictory emotion; (2) a self-destructive activity. As to (1) feelings of jealousy are incompatible with true care for the well-being and sat...

How do we experience poetry as readers? What is it in the text that provokes particular reactions, and how can we methodologically reveal these effects? Introducing an evidence-based approach to poetics, this book explores the psychological effects of poetic form and content, with an emphasis on how real readers respond to and experience poetry. E...

One major research area in the empirical study of literature pertains to the role of foregrounding (i. e., stylistic deviations and parallelism) in the reading process. The associated phenomena are arguably key to understanding what distinguishes literary reading and essential for the investigation of its impact on readers' interpretation and aesth...

This famous quote from Winnie-the-Pooh reveals something fundamental about the role love stories play in the lives of people. That they do, is beyond doubt, as the theme of love pervades all of literature. And this interest in the topic of love has not waned. Publishing love stories is a multi-billion business. Apparently humans are not content wit...

Love comes in many forms, as we all know and as the quote from Anna Karenina by Tolstoy holds. Some forms are more frequent than others. As a consequence, less frequent forms may be either tolerated or dismissed as deviant, and therefore socially sanctioned. And different cultures may deal with such forms very differently. In this chapter we look a...

In this chapter we provide an answer to the question why this particular poem, “I Loved you” by Pushkin, has become so famous. It doubtlessly belongs to the canon of literary love poems in the Russian language. But why? Its fame seems to be in flagrant contradiction with its simplicity. Indeed, many readers may not perceive anything particularly “l...

The authors offer an overview of the theory of foregrounding from its origin in the philosophy of Aristotleand later development in the works of the Russian Formalists and then the Prague Structuralists. The focusis made on the benefts of Empirical Study of Literature that enables researchers to apply a more rigorousand accountable methodology in in...

The general feeling of malaise, if not crisis, in Literary Studies forces us to urgently look for solutions that will bring the discipline forward. This article is a call for a concentration on fundamental issues in the study of literature, and at the same time for a more rigorous and accountable methodology in studying both the content and the for...

In this paper, we argue that the long-term evaluation of literary texts rather privileges their formal and structural aspects, but to a lesser degree the content. As external and internal reasons for literary evaluation are distinguished, the latter are privileged while the former will only last as the themes and the external reasons remain, which...

In the past, several studies have found empirical support for the psychological notion of foregrounding. In this article we will present the results of a series of reading experiments investigating descriptive and evaluative reader reactions to poems, both in their original form (containing rather heavy foregrounding, both deviation and parallelism...

This article provides fi ndings on the status of „truth” in recent academic discourse. Willie van Peer suggests undertaking a critical analysis of some recent debates, using the term „revisionism” for this enterprise. Author elaborates on various methodologies concerning the status of truth: revelatory, formal, and empirical notion of truth, as wel...

In this contribution, we argue that the educational quality of the Humanities will be greatly enhanced if students carry out their own research. We refer to a ten-year project between our three universities and report the empirical feedback from survey of 53 participants. It indicates that the skills acquired considerably influenced their future in...

This article will investigate the extent to which predictions of Terror Management Theory also hold on reading literature. Indeed, death is ubiquitous in fiction. But does reading about it cause the same reactions as those predicted by Terror Management Theory? To answer this question, five reading experiments were carried out. The hypothesis, deve...

It is common practice in academic research projects to present final assessment by means of reporting and evaluating results. More often than not, these reports tend to focus on the quantity and quality of the knowledge acquired, and very little (if any) attention is given to the impact the research may have had on the researchers themselves. In an...

This paper presents a concrete illustration of the methods that Marion Behrens highlighted in her talk. It will concentrate on the way in which very simple manipulations of literary texts can provide enlightening insights into the nature of literary perception and evaluation. The issue at hand is the current security situation, and the behavior it...

About half a century ago, a little revolution in literary studies took place. Following the ideas of the Russian Formalists and Prague tructuralists, a more rigorous approach to the study of literary texts was proposed. One of the major discussions turned around e.e. cummings’ “anyone lived in a pretty how town”, especially about the heavy foregrou...

The term ‘empathy’ is associated with positive values in western cultures: it is generally thought good if people feel empathetic, and children are standardly brought up to take feelings of other people into consideration. But what if empathy is distressful? Literary authors are often quite adept at describing situations or events which may evoke e...

Starting from a categorization by Robert Penrose, the question is asked in what sense literary theories might be called ‚scientific'. It turns out that, seen from this vantage point, few of the extant theories deserve the name ‚scientific'. This is all the more surprising, because the methodology for developing such scientific theories is available...

The present book is the author’s Ph.D. dissertation at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, consisting of 11 chapters, 6 ‘theoretical’ and 5 ‘practical’ ones (see below). It is largely a plea for a “cognitive literary studies” (Kognitive Literaturwissenschaft). But not only a plea. In a good portion of the book, the author attempts to develo...

About half a century ago, a little revolution took place in the study of literature. Following the introduction of the ideas of the Russian Formalists and Prague Structuralists in the West during the late 1960s, a more rigorous approach to the study of literary texts was proposed, initially against fierce resistance from literary criticism. One o...

This chapter aims at describing the networks within the Research and Development in Empirical Studies (REDES) Project, an intercultural enterprise aimed at promoting empirical studies of culture. Probably the first and only international project in the Humanities which prepares new researchers through online communication, the experience is believe...

This chapter focuses on how doing empirical research can lead to insights in the way in which literary texts generate meaning and aesthetic value. The focus is firmly on techniques for carrying out small-scale, manageable projects of an empirical nature, suitable for undergraduate students to carry out. The chapter suggests that a key way for stude...

Today's popularization of modern technologies has allowed literature specialists to access an array of new opportunities in the digital medium, which have brought about an equal number of challenges and questions. Literary Education and Digital Learning: Methods and Technologies for Humanities Studies provides insight into the most relevant issues...

This chapter aims at describing the networks within the Research and Development in Empirical Studies (REDES) Project, an intercultural enterprise aimed at promoting empirical studies of culture. Probably the first and only international project in the Humanities which prepares new researchers through online communication, the experience is believe...

In this chapter I argue that traditional ways of treating literature and the arts have evolved into technical ways of dealing with them, without much alignment on why these texts and works are there in the first place. I will give some clear (and, I believe, convincing) examples of this. I will claim that the examples are prototypical for the way t...

This article approaches from an empirical perspective the interrelation between foregrounding and complexity in the evaluation of literary texts. For this purpose, a reading experiment is reported. Participants from three cultures (Brazil, Egypt, and the Netherlands) read three texts of different degrees of complexity and evaluated them on a number...

Research in experimental aesthetics suggests a relation between complexity and novelty on the one hand and hedonic value on the other (Berlyne, 1980). Defining foregrounding as deviation from daily language, the concept seems closely associated with novelty, and therefore a relation may be expected between the degree of deviation and readers' aesth...

Processes of identification and non-identification start from the very beginning of life and display a dynamic of their own. Initially, non-identification is gradually overcome and gives way to processes of identification. What is surprising is that at a particular point in time this process comes to a halt and non-identification overtakes the iden...

In this paper we will present the result of an investigation that examined the role of prestige on literary response. Is it the case, so the central hypothesis runs, that an author’s reputation influences readers’ reactions to a text? More specifically, we are interested in the question whether readers estimate the literary quality of a text higher...

In dieser empirischen Studie wird untersucht, inwieweit die literarische Wertung eines Textes durch dessen Komplexitätsgrad beeinflusst wird. Ausgangshypothese ist die Vermutung, dass die Verwendung von Foregroundingtechniken (Verfremdungstechniken) die Aufmerksamkeit steigen lässt und den Verstehensprozess erschwert und dass dies zu einer höheren...

The present article argues that the content analysis of literature may profit from computational techniques such as Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA). LSA is able to calculate the semantic distance between textual items by locating them in a vast multi-dimensional space. The results show remarkable similarity when compared to psychological data. LSA h...

The present article argues that the content analysis of literature may profit from computational techniques such as Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA). LSA is able to calculate the semantic distance between textual items by locating them in a vast multi-dimensional space. The results show remarkable similarity when compared to psychological data. LSA h...

Linguistics and literary studies are neighbouring disciplines, both drawing heavily on language, communication, and the way people relate to each other and the world. Linguistics grew out of preconceived elements and empirical observations, gradually making way to more abstract theories of language. These developments, abstract as they may have bee...

Thematics is the study of themes and motifs in text. Although themes have been studied for many centuries, thematics received its impetus from folklorists studying the universality of folktales. By indexing recurrent elements that describe (parts of) folktales, folklorists were able to determine similarities and differences between tales, allowing...

What literature is, how it works, and why it exists at all are some of the fascinating questions that the theory of foregrounding tries to answer. The term 'foregrounding' refers to specific linguistic devices, i.e., deviation and parallelism, that are used in literary texts in a functional and condensed way. These devices enhance the meaning poten...

Starting from a thought experiment in which efforts at detecting stylistic variation are examined on a number of parameters, the present article argues that monitoring purely stylistic differences without recourse to semantic material is difficult if not impossible for humans. It turns out that it can be done quite successfully, however, when speci...

This article addresses the question of the effects of narrative perspective on readers. A review of the (mainly social science) literature suggests a number of factors that may affect readers' interpretation of character behaviour while reading stories. An experiment is set up to check whether the manipulation of narrative perspective indeed result...

This article addresses the question of the effects of narrative perspective on readers. A review of the (mainly social science) literature suggests a number of factors that may affect readers' interpretation of character behaviour while reading stories. An experiment is set up to check whether the manipulation of narrative perspective indeed result...

The article intervenes into the discussions of literary canon. It argues that either neo-Marxist and poststructuralist views on literary canonisation as a result of power conflicts or claims about aesthetic quality as the main criteria are biased. Analysing Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and contemporary elaboration of Arthur Brooke's story the ide...

Situating Beckett's "First Love" in the philosophical tradition of cynicism allows us to approach the text comprehensively. Evidence of Beckett's own cynical attitude supports several of the overt themes of the work: vanitas, or the irrelevance of human actions, the outsider or misanthrope, scatology or obscenity, and the demystification of love an...

The material character of texts makes it possible to damage, mutilate, or destroy them, making their functioning or their interpretation difficult. The present study surveys historical instances of sign mutilation. It will be shown that signs have been mutilated or damaged because: 1. the user feared that (part of) the sign might call forth a dange...

New Literary History 29.2 (1998) 329-346 Over the past decades, literary studies have undergone a deep transformation in which traditional methods have been under-mined and replaced with new ones. Although there is always value in criticizing a tradition, all too often in literary studies that critique has made itself immune against attacks from ot...

This article is a response to an article by Ray Mackay (1996) which constitutes an attack on stylistic analysis in general, and the writings of the above authors and Ron Carter in particular. Mackay's article (in Language and Communication) accuses stylistics of 'scientificness' and claims that its attempt to provide objective analyses of literary...

Despite the great interest in the reception of art and media in recent years, little attention has been paid to the way in which narrative fictions, whether high or low, address the emotions of readers, listeners, and viewers. Instead, emphasis is generally placed on hermeneutics. Interpretation of what is loosely called the meaning of the work has...