The History of the Empirical Study of Literature from the Nineteenth to the Twenty-First Century

This chapter sketches the history of empirical reading research. Although Theodor Fechner, the father of Empirical Aesthetics, lived in the nineteenth century, and experiments in literary reading had taken place in previous centuries, the beginning of the twentieth century can be considered the birth of empirical studies of literature. By that time, three conditions for the birth of the discipline had already been met: (a) The understanding of aesthetic phenomena, such as literary reading, in psychological terms; (b) the development of proper experimental tools; and (c) the recognition of literary texts as aesthetic objects. In 1914, the term “empirical literary science” (“empirische Literaturwissenschaft”), which is still in use, appeared for the first time in a written document. This chapter describes the evolution of the research field, beginning with its forerunners in the nineteenth century, moving to Robert Chenault Givler’s, Karl Girgensohn’s, and I. A. Richards’ first experiments in literary reading at the beginning of the twentieth century, and finishing in the twenty-first century with the field’s international diffusion, its institutionalization, and the groundwork it has laid for current trends.