The Quality of Literature

“While there is growing interest in the psychology of beauty and aesthetics applied to visual art forms, literature is often given the short end of the stick. Psych and the Literary Muses is an example of beautiful writing in itself, with research results sprinkled about. How can the written word stir our souls, awaken our senses, and stimulate our thoughts? What properties of the text can have such an affect on the reader? By looking at the Psychology of literature from the vantage point of the text, Lindauer offers fresh and deep insight into the experience of reading, balancing work being done by psychology of creative writing researchers on the psychological quirks of the writer. Lindauer’s broad knowledge base of literature shines through in his writing and only adds to the respectability of his ideas. By connecting the text to such diverse topics as person perception, creativity, learning, and even aging, Lindauer opens up avenues for research that scholars across a variety of fields may not have even known existed. At the same time, he creates bridges across those avenues in a way that scholars, readers, writers, and almost anyone with a healthy (or even unhealthy) dose of interest in the psychology of literature can relate and appreciate.”

“This is a book that could potentially become on the cutting edge of literary study. I have been impressed, over the years, with Prof. Lindauer's attempts to integrate the study of imaginative literature and contemporary psychology. This book looks like a solid contribution to the developing paradigm of literary study and empirical psychology.”

“This is an excellent volume, of an academic and intellectual standard that should be attractive to any university press in the English-speaking world… The book is likely to be highly controversial precisely because it goes against the grain of Anglophone literary study of the past quarter-century. This controversy is precisely what is needed in the field ­ and has been needed for many years.”