Shared Experience – Shared Consolation? Fictional Perspective-Taking and Existential Stances in Literature
Abstract
This paper suggests some ways in which the concerns of existential
psychotherapy may be combined with the practice of
poetry therapy. It emphasizes the capacity of literature for
inducing perspective-taking, i.e. the reader’s opportunity of
experiencing the ongoing here and now of a fictional character,
including the speaker of a poem. It goes on to show this process
in action in four poems exemplifying, respectively, four
different attitudes to the existential question of meaning and
purpose in life: transcendental-optimistic (Erik Gustaf Geijer’s
»Natthimmelen« / »The Night Sky«); transcendental-pessimistic
(A.E. Housman’s »The Laws of God«); immanent-optimistic
(Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s »A Hymn to the Night«); and
immanent-pessimistic (Tennyson’s »Oh Yet We Trust«). Whatever
the stance of the poems, the reader grappling with existential
questions may take the perspective of the speakers of
the poems, thereby finding solace in a shared experience of the
human condition.
Publisher
LIR. journal
Collections
View/ Open
Date
2015Author
Petterson, Torsten
Keywords
poetry therapy
bibliotherapy
existential questions
the meaning of life
perspective-taking
Geijer
Housman
Longfellow
Tennyson
Publication type
article, peer reviewed scientific
Language
eng