tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post8597047511846078725..comments2024-03-26T01:10:13.720+00:00Comments on Teach Me Tonight: Pleasure Reading and Cognitive WorkE. M. Selingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-22540521479598345502012-07-17T20:52:11.251+01:002012-07-17T20:52:11.251+01:00You can tell she's doing it on purpose...You can tell she's doing it on purpose...Jessica Taylorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07507448652354335749noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-40073773000868098862012-07-17T20:50:10.027+01:002012-07-17T20:50:10.027+01:00I hope you're enjoying it!
A little off-topic...I hope you're enjoying it!<br /><br />A little off-topic (since it's film, not prose and I presume the cognitive work is different), but many of the 1920s film heroes are also very Romantic in the way described above. We seldom have to guess how they might be feeling...it's all in their face and bodily disposition...Jessica Taylorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07507448652354335749noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-16968448376789485342012-07-17T20:41:03.682+01:002012-07-17T20:41:03.682+01:00it might not be a straightforward historical devel...<i>it might not be a straightforward historical development, since The Sheik was first published in 1919.</i><br /><br />No, I'm sure it's not straightforward, particularly if you're looking at romance/romantic fiction over a longer time-period. I'd been thinking of romance novels in fairly recent decades but I have a feeling there were lots of emo-heroes in nineteenth-century fiction because when I was doing my research on Mills & Boon I came across a reference to a gothic novel in which the characters (male as well as female) kept swooning.<br /><br />Sadly, with the exception of <i>Manon Lescaut</i>, I've not read any of the fiction described below, but it seems to describe a very emo type of hero:<br /><br /><i>The Romantic character was an impassioned, sometimes defiant, but always hyperbolic character who experienced both joy and grief in an excessive manner. Outlines of this extreme emotionalism can be found in some late eighteenth-century writings, such as Rousseau's </i>Rêveries<i> and </i>La nouvelle Héloïse<i>, or the Abbé Prévost's novel </i>Manon Lescaut<i>. The Romantic hero is overly sensitive, prone to emotional extremes, and moved easily to tears, even fainting spells. The beauty of nature, the witnessing of suffering in others, even the prospect of impending happiness are causes for emotional collapse or loss of consciousness. The Romantic hero is particularly preoccupied and dismayed by death and the inevitability of temporal destruction. In consequence, he is particularly sensitive to loss of any kind.</i> (<a href="http://online.missouri.edu/exec/data/courses/2331/public/lesson01/lesson01.aspx" rel="nofollow">University of Missouri</a>)<br /><br />I've been reading your blog, by the way, and I've been meaning to post a link to it.Laura Vivancohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-26742536022390762642012-07-17T19:50:12.440+01:002012-07-17T19:50:12.440+01:00Fascinating, Jessica! I've taught The Sheik s...Fascinating, Jessica! I've taught The Sheik several times, and I always draw my students' attention to when and how we shift point of view. The first moments when we get into Sheikh Ahmed's head and stay there are really dramatic, to me. Hull's not an elegant or subtle writer, but those turning points are a good way to show her sense of structure (and psychology) in action, I think.E. M. Selingerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-67227441775857289502012-07-17T19:32:13.868+01:002012-07-17T19:32:13.868+01:00I'm re-reading The Sheik for a blog I'm do...I'm re-reading The Sheik for a blog I'm doing this summer, and it's interesting how the narration brings us through these stages - and not only with the hero, but also the heroine. <br /><br />First we have no access to the heroine's 'feelings', then we get a lot (for me, a bit too much - like Sunita's feelings about the emo-alpha, I'm a bit exhausted by her emo-ness).<br /><br />And then we get access to the hero's pov, although he never quite reaches the 'emo-alpha' point (in my opinion).<br /><br />All this is to say that it might not be a straightforward historical development, since The Sheik was first published in 1919.Jessica Taylorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07507448652354335749noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-9692531759711298462012-07-07T22:19:58.386+01:002012-07-07T22:19:58.386+01:00Glad you found it interesting, Pam!
I don't a...Glad you found it interesting, Pam!<br /><br /><i>I don't associate an omniscient narrator with novels that don't require "cognitive and emotional work." It might be, though, that something like Middlemarch is demanding a very different kind of work from us than a book with a more limited point of view.</i><br /><br />In terms of a narrator reducing the amount of cognitive work which has to be done by the reader, I was thinking of the narratorial voice in <i>Northanger Abbey</i>, because there the heroine is the kind of "reader" of other people who does take everything at face value and, as a result, she's often extremely puzzled by their behaviour. We, though, have the narrator (and some of the other characters) helping us feel confident that <b>we</b> do know what's going on.<br /><br />I think you're right that an omniscient narrator would tend to have a distancing effect and that reminds me of a <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/05/10/1052280481951.html" rel="nofollow">recent Mills & Boon slogan</a>:<br /><br /><i>Harlequin marketing manager Robyn Ball said the Live The Emotion campaign was about tapping into people's need to escape.<br /><br />"The reason people read Mills & Boon is because they want to experience through the novel what the characters are experiencing," Ms Ball said. "So Live The Emotion seemed like a perfect slogan; particularly for the younger market."</i> <br /><br />So if omniscient narrators get in the way of "living the emotion" I can see why they'd not be very common in popular romance.<br /><br />In terms of the development of romances, it seems to me that perhaps one can see a trend towards increasing emotional involvement alongside a reduction in the amount of work the reader needs to do in order to understand the characters' feelings. If there was a move from<br /><br />(a) romances in which the alpha hero is a mysterious figure whom the heroine loves but doesn't understand (rather like in the modern gothic romances, although his character isn't explicitly made part of a mystery) to<br /><br />(b) romances in which the reader has access to both the hero and heroine's point of view to<br /><br />(c) romances with an "emo-alpha" as described by Sunita<br /><br />then I suppose it could well have had the effect of increasing emotional involvement (in the sense that the reader can engage with the emotions felt by both protagonists) and so increase emotional <b>enjoyment</b> while decreasing the amount of "cognitive and emotional" <b>work</b> the reader has to do in order to understand what the characters are feeling.Laura Vivancohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-15592905044822486562012-07-07T20:28:52.848+01:002012-07-07T20:28:52.848+01:00I've been thinking about this since you posted...I've been thinking about this since you posted it, because I don't associate an omniscient narrator with novels that don't require "cognitive and emotional work." It might be, though, that something like Middlemarch is demanding a very different kind of work from us than a book with a more limited point of view. <br /><br />It is interesting, though, that both omniscient narration and first-person are pretty much anathema in romances written today (at least for adults). Most readers like deep third person and they also want the hero's point of view, where it seems to me a lot of older romances did not provide that. So I do agree that the popular narrative form--deep third person, shifting between the hero's and heroine's point of view--in m/f romance is a kind of substitute for omniscient narration, in allowing us access to both characters' thoughts, but doesn't have the distancing effect many readers feel from an omniscient narrator.<br /><br />Thanks for this provocative post! I'm really interested in POV in romance fiction and its effects.Liz Mc2https://www.blogger.com/profile/06791468134387620449noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-16830126642807320792012-07-06T13:23:26.517+01:002012-07-06T13:23:26.517+01:00Thank-you, Laura for this post!
Pam RegisThank-you, Laura for this post! <br />Pam RegisAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com