Memory in Literature

Suzanne Nalbantian

"This book is the first to discover and probe in depth memory phenomena captured in literary works. Using literature as a laboratory for the workings of the mind, this comparative study of writers from Jean-Jacques Rousseau to Octavio Paz uncovers valuable material for the classification of the memory process. Such classification includes memory in its relation to emotions, the senses, environmental associations, the unconscious mind, and language. Suzanne Nalbantian brings scientific objectivity to literary criticism and, at the same time, offers scientists fresh data from literature about the workings of human memory. She discerns new connections between the intuitive expression of memory by literary subjects and neuroscientific theories about the encoding, storage, and retrieval of memory. This interdisciplinary work involving literature, science and art forges a new model for dialogue between the disciplines."--BOOK JACKET.