Literature as a Source of Cognitive Knowledge

Abstract

The pedagogical application of fiction as a source of cognitive knowledge in integrated language and literature programmes at university is treated here as problematic, since doubted by some theorists and, while effort-consuming, causing difficulties in practice. The conclusions are based on specimen analysis. Cognitive knowledge from fiction is not accessible directly. It may best be gleaned from the subconscious and conscious match of the known of reality a priori in alignment with the author’s knowledge, transformed and encoded in his work(s), and accessible only through connotations, while an expert teacher can guide the student in this. A natural way to glean cognitive knowledge from fiction is reading widely, while turning to fiction relaxed to maximise one’s perceptive powers, and let the mind collect the knowledge in elemental senses from volumes of reading.