Imagination, Reading, and Cognitive Development: Early Insights in Edith Nesbit’s The Enchanted Castle

Abstract

In “Reading Fiction is Good for Children’s Cognitive, Emotional, and Social Development,” Maria Nikolajeva explains that cognitive theory can contribute much to literary studies and that a fledgling field of study exists that combines cognitive theory and cognitive science with literary criticism to create an approach known as cognitive literary criticism (4). She makes a case for the many useful insights that can be gained from using cognitive literary theory to understand how reading affects young developing minds. Specifically, she focuses on “how fiction stimulates young readers’ perception, attention, imagination, memory and other cognitive activity” (1). Literary critics have long asserted that reading helps stimulate the imagination, which is an essential aspect of cognition that starts to develop in childhood. Furthermore, reading allows one to enter situations and conflicts vicariously as a kind of practice. When a situation similar to one they have read about comes up in the readers’ lives, they will have some simulated experience with it gathered from reading. However, that literature can improve the cognitive abilities of readers appears to be a new insight for the scientific community.