Dynamics of Literary Response

Reading a poem or a novel seeing a play or a film is a special kind of experience. Yet the essential nature of that experience has remained a mystery. Philosophers have discussed the writer''s role and critics the writer''s craft but there has been little disciplined inquiry into the relation of literature to people''s minds--the way in which people re-create within themselves the literary experience. Norman Holland approaches the problem armed with a thorough understanding of psychoanalytic concepts and develops a comprehensive theory of the psychology of literature that deals with poetry theater and film as well as with fiction myth pornography and humor.