Abstract:

This essay argues that it is literature, and the serious reading of literature, which offers a sudden emotional experience of human dignity, realized anew through the care of its language. Case histories are provided from the work of The Reader, a charitable organization bringing live shared reading to hard-to-reach communities. The research was conducted by the Centre for Research into Reading, Literature and Society (CRILS), at the University of Liverpool. CRILS analysed the effect of literary texts on the heightened language of the participants themselves in the reading groups, revealing often neglected inner resources stirred by literature to bear the troubles and indignities of existence. These ordinary non-academic readers are able to register that emergent transformation from trouble into achievement not only vicariously through the texts they read at the time but also by seeing, later in interview, filmed excerpts of their own creative responses during the reading sessions.

摘要：

本文认为，正是文学，以及对文学的认真阅读，提供了一种对人类尊严的突然情感体验，通过对文学语言的关怀而重新实现。案例历史来自The Reader的工作，一个慈善组织，为难以到达的社区提供实时共享阅读。该研究由利物浦大学的阅读、文学和社会研究中心 (CRILS) 进行。CRILS 分析了文学文本对阅读群体参与者自身语言能力的提高的影响，揭示了文学激发了经常被忽视的内心资源，以承受生存的麻烦和侮辱。这些普通的非学术读者不仅可以通过他们当时阅读的文本间接地看到从麻烦到成就的突然转变，而且还可以通过在采访中看到他们自己在阅读过程中的创造性反应的片段。