Empathy and the Psychology of Literary Modernism

Meghan Marie Hammond explores the intricate relationship between psychological theory and literary innovation in Empathy and the Psychology of Literary Modernism, Volume 1. This scholarly work examines how fin de siècle conceptions of empathy, a term coined in 1909 to bridge sympathy and Einfühlung, shaped the landscape of early twentieth-century literature. By investigating the little-known history of this cognitive and affective structure, the text reveals how modernism moved away from traditional sympathetic representation toward empathic forms that attempt to convey the immediacy of another person's internal world.

This literary criticism analyzes the works of Henry James, Dorothy Richardson, Katherine Mansfield, Ford Madox Ford, and Virginia Woolf to address the problem of other minds. Hammond recovers early psychology as a vital framework for understanding modernist technique and intersubjective experience. The study highlights how these authors navigated the tension between the ideal of empathic connection and the inherent dangers of such psychological intimacy.