ELSEVIER Poetics 26 (1999) 439--454 POETICS www.elsevier.nl/locate/poetic Meetings of minds: Dialogue, sympathy, and identification, in reading fiction Keith Oatley 2. Centre for Applied Cognitive Science, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto, 252 Bloor Street West, Toronto, M5S 1V6, Canada Abstract Any one work of literature reaches only a very few minds among the whole human popu- lation, and yet when a real meeting occurs of reader with a book, or reader with an author (via a book), it can be profound. I describe the phenomena of meeting, and their relation to per- sonal reflection in theoretical terms, drawing on Bakhtin's (1984 [1963]) proposals of the novel as a place of dialogue. The intensity and type of such meetings varies with the degree to which a reader takes a spectator role, or identifies with a protagonist. I present empirical studies, which show how particular kinds of minds connect with particular kinds of short sto- ries, and I discuss how in such places as reading groups, meetings among friends are affected by reading novels. © 1999 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction George Eliot said that: 'The greatest benefit we owe to the artist, whether painter, poet or novelist is the extension of our sympathies ... extending our contact with our fellow men beyond the bounds of our personal lot' (Pinney, 1963: 270). From Eliot comes the idea that is the subject of this paper: the intention of art, and particularly literary art, is not so much to describe, or inform, or instruct, as to allow meetings of minds. In contrast to 'artist' one can consider 'scientist', or perhaps 'writer of non-fic- tion', whose intention is to change the reader's beliefs in a certain way. A belief is The author thanks the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for research sup- port. * E-mail: koatley@oise.utoronto.ca 0304-422X/99/$ - see front matter © 1999 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: S0304-422X(99)00011-X