Journal article

Publication year: 2004

Pages: 221-235

Journal: Style

Volume number: 38

Issue number: 2

ISSN: 0039-4238

Publisher: Penn State University Press

Abstract: 
When we read novels or plays, human figures emerge from the page, and quite a few of them begin to exist wellnigh autonomously, first in individual and then also in collective memory. This process of figuring-forth, the transformation of a scattering of sequentially perceived signs in a text during reading into full-blown figures complete with bodies, feelings, and minds, is the topic of this essay. It deals in some detail with the conditions of figuring-forth, the process of figuration, and the resulting creation of illusion, mustering above all the resources of both empirical psychology and reception theory for their explanatory power.

Harvard Citation style: Grabes, H. (2004) Turning words on the page into "real" people, Style, 38(2), pp. 221-235

APA Citation style: Grabes, H. (2004). Turning words on the page into "real" people. Style. 38(2), 221-235.