The Psychology of Story Telling

"The imaginative application of the paradigmatic mode leads to good theory, tight analysis, logical proof, sound argument, and empirical discovery guided by reasoned hypothesis. But paradigmatic “imagination” (or intuition) is not the same as the imagination of the novelist or poet. Rather, it is the ability to see possible formal connections before one is able to prove them in any formal way."

-Jerome Bruner

     This quote from the article The Psychology of Story Telling stuck out to me in how it applies the class of AP Literature and Composition. In class we read works of fiction written by a novelist or poet in an imaginative state and as a class we enter an imaginative state through creatively pulling out literary devices. Creating a hypothesis then supporting this hypothesis with a carefully reasoned argument filled with quotes and analysis is imaginative. It takes a strong imagination to read through a work and be able to pull out a distinct interpretation, seeing elements of the piece others might overlook. There is an element of imagination involved with visually the piece and finding the author's purpose. However, the imagination of the author in writing the literary work is a different imagination that the type exercised in AP Literature class. The author also has a vision and a purpose unique to him or her, but imagining a story and creating a setting and plot out of the blank white of a page is its own form of imagination. The author's imagination is the ingenuity of developing complex characters and using language to present a vision otherwise untranslatable. The reader's imagination is the ability to pick up on the subtle flecks of tone and metaphoric language that give the piece life. Furthermore, it is even possible for the reader to uncover themes that the author did not know were there.