Die psychologische Bedeutung des Romans. Phänomenologische Anmerkungen zur Literaturpsychologie

A methodological answer to the question about the significance of the novel for empirical psychology can be sought in literary psychology, according to which texts can either be treated as behavioural data or analysed in terms of content. However, this perspective is not sufficient to determine a specific difference from other text genres. To understand the psychological significance of the novel, it is necessary to determine its essential characteristics. External attributes cannot do justice to the novel as a novel; instead, an inner determination, a phenomenology of the novel, is needed. The fictional world that is created in the novel is constituted in its own structure. A novel is neither a mere stringing together of events nor an accurate, well-formulated report of information. It is a work of art that creates its own world in which the reading mind can progress to new insights. The literary genius puts the reading subject into the perspectives of the characters. Here, the subject is confronted with the value structures within the world of the novel. In this way, the reading mind can reach experiences that would otherwise remain hidden from it. The novel is a methodological challenge for psychology, but at the same time an opportunity. To make the psychological significance of the novel comprehensible, theories of the experience of value, narrativity, and imagination have to be addressed.