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Why Is Literature:
The Interplay of Belief, Feeling,
and Desire in Cultural Transactions
In this "pilot piece" of a book-length study in progress, I will suggest possible reasons for the apparent ubiquity of certain literary and protoliterary phenomena across cultural divides. In particular, I will argue that the see-saw between separating and intertwining the cognitive, emotive, and volitional dimensions of human awareness enables three kinds of cross-cultural universals to emerge: (1) Fictive plots involving imagined characters speaking or spoken about in highly figurative language motivate actual people to change themselves and their worlds. (2) Both thrilling and gratifying entertainment delight audiences by inclining them toward tears and/or laughter. (3) Comparable thematic, narrative, lyric, and dramatic structures of discourse loom large in most oral and literate traditions (e.g., proverbs and aphorisms, myths and histories, folk songs and poems, rituals and plays).
Paul Hernadi
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