Abstract:
Mindreading is the human ability to look at a person or a literary character and contemplate what that person is thinking, feeling, and planning. In this dissertation I identify two methods of mindreading: inference and imagination. Shakespeare uses both methods, at times constructing characters by referring to theories of human behavior (inference), at times by referring to the particular perspective of a character (imagination). I engage current debates about the usefulness of character criticism, but I begin by addressing L. C. Knights’ tongue-in-cheek question, “How many children had Lady Macbeth?” Knights crystallized discontent with nineteenth-century character criticism, a discontent that was picked up by American new critics and subsequently post-structuralist critics of many stripes. Like Michael Bristol, Jessica Slights, and Paul Yachnin, I argue for a literary criticism that considers characters as if they were real people living in recognizable worlds. I add to this conversation by using terms and concepts from cognitive science that provide clarity to discussions of character. Theories of mindreading offer criticism a language with which to analyze moments of reading and misreading and to consider the mental workings of fictional characters in Shakespeare’s plays.
