Wonderworks: The 25 Most Powerful Inventions in the History of Literature

by Angus Fletcher

Overview

This “fascinating” (Malcolm Gladwell, New York Times bestselling author of Outliers) examination of literary inventions through the ages, from ancient Mesopotamia to Elena Ferrante, shows how writers have created technical breakthroughs—rivaling scientific inventions—and engineering enhancements to the human heart and mind.

Literature is a technology like any other. And the writers we revere—from Homer, Shakespeare, Austen, and others—each made a unique technical breakthrough that can be viewed as both a narrative and neuroscientific advancement. Literature’s great invention was to address problems we could not solve: not how to start a fire or build a boat, but how to live and love; how to maintain courage in the face of death; how to account for the fact that we exist at all.

Wonderworks reviews the blueprints for twenty-five of the most significant developments in the history of literature. These inventions can be scientifically shown to alleviate grief, trauma, loneliness, anxiety, numbness, depression, pessimism, and ennui, while sparking creativity, courage, love, empathy, hope, joy, and positive change. They can be found throughout literature—from ancient Chinese lyrics to Shakespeare’s plays, poetry to nursery rhymes and fairy tales, and crime novels to slave narratives.

A “refreshing and remarkable” (Jay Parini, author of Borges and Me: An Encounter) exploration of the new literary field of story science, Wonderworks teaches you everything you wish you learned in your English class, and “contains many instances of critical insight....What’s most interesting about this compendium is its understanding of imaginative representation as a technology” (The New York Times).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781982135973
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	03/09/2021
Pages:	464
Sales rank:	280,399
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Angus Fletcher is a professor of story science at Ohio State’s Project Narrative, the world’s leading academic think-tank for the study of stories. He has dual degrees in neuroscience and literature, received his PhD from Yale, taught Shakespeare at Stanford, and has published two books and dozens of peer-reviewed academic articles on the scientific workings of novels, poetry, film, and theater. His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He has done story-consulting for projects for Sony, Disney, the BBC, Amazon, PBS, and Universal and is the author/presenter of the Audible/Great Courses Guide to Screenwriting.

Table of Contents

Preface A Heaven of Invention 1

Introduction The Lost Technology 13

Chapter 1 Rally Your Courage 29

Homer's Iliad and the Invention of the Almighty Heart

Chapter 2 Rekindle the Romance 43

Sappho's Lyrics, the Odes of Eastern Zhou, and the Invention of the Secret Discloser

Chapter 3 Exit Anger 57

The Book of Job, Sophocles's Oedipus Tyrannus, and the Invention of the Empathy Generator

Chapter 4 Float Above Hurt 71

Aesop's Fables, Plato's Meno, and the Invention of the Serenity Elevator

Chapter 5 Excite Your Curiosity 83

The Epic of Sundiata, the Modern Thriller, and the Invention of the Tale Told from Our Future

Chapter 6 Free Your Mind 97

Dante's Inferno, Machiavelli's Innovatori, and the Invention of the Vigilance Trigger

Chapter 7 Jettison Your Pessimism 107

Giovanni Straparola, the Original Cinderella, and the Invention of the Fairy-tale Twist

Chapter 8 Heal from Grief 125

Shakespeare's Hamlet and the Invention of the Sorrow Resolver

Chapter 9 Banish Despair 139

John Donne's "Songs" and the Invention of the Mind-Eye Opener

Chapter 10 Achieve Self-Acceptance 153

Cao Xueqin's Dream of the Red Chamber, Zhuangzi's "Tale of Wanton, " and the Invention of the Butterfly Immerser

Chapter 11 Ward Off Heartbreak 167

Jane Austen, Henry Fielding, and the Invention of the Valentine Armor

Chapter 12 Energize Your Life 183

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Modern Meta-Horror, and the Invention of the Stress Transformer

Chapter 13 Solve Every Mystery 195

Francis Bacon, Edgar Allan Poe, and the Invention of the Virtual Scientist

Chapter 14 Become Your Better Self 211

Frederick Douglass, Saint Augustine, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and the Invention of the Life Evolver

Chapter 15 Bounce Back from Failure 227

George Eliot's Middlemarch and the Invention of the Gratitude Multiplier

Chapter 16 Clear Your Head 241

"Rashomon," Julius Caesar, and the Invention of the Second Look

Chapter 17 Find Peace of Mind 251

Virginia Woolf, Marcel Proust, fames Joyce, and the Invention of the Riverbank of Consciousness

Chapter 18 Feed Your Creativity 273

Winnie-the-Pooh, Alice in Wonderland, and the Invention of the Anarchy Rhymer

Chapter 19 Unlock Salvation 287

To Kill a Mockingbird, Shakespeare's Soliloquy Breakthrough, and the Invention of the Humanity Connector

Chapter 20 Renew Your Future 301

Gabriel Garcia Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis, and the Invention of the Revolution Rediscovery

Chapter 21 Decide Wiser 311

Ursula he Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness, Thomas More's Utopia, Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, and the Invention of the Double Alien

Chapter 22 Believe in Yourself 327

Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and the Invention of the Choose Your Own Accomplice

Chapter 23 Unfreeze Your Heart 341

Alison Bechdel, Euripides, Samuel Beckett, T. S. Eliot, and the invention of the Clinical Joy

Chapter 24 Live Your Dream 353

Tina Fey's 30 Rock, a Dash of "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious," and the Invention of the Wish Triumphant

Chapter 25 Lessen Your Lonely 367

Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend, Mario Puzo's The Godfather, and the Invention of the Childhood Opera

Conclusion Inventing Tomorrow 387

Coda The Secret History of This Book 391

Acknowledgments 401

Notes on Translations, Sources, and Further Reading 403

Index 423

Editorial Reviews

02/08/2021

Fletcher (Cosmic Democracies), professor of story science at Ohio State’s Project Narrative, delivers an innovative take on storytelling that shows how stories “plug into different regions of our brain.” Each chapter examines a literary invention, such as “The Empathy Generator” and “The Fairy-Tale Twist,” and shows how engaging with various authors and thinkers can shed light on the way modern works of literature and pop culture are received. One chapter focuses on the “Valentine Armor,” meant to ward off heartbreak, and begins with Cervantes’s Don Quixote, which inspired the mock romance of Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones and led to themes in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. This blending of love and irony, Fletcher writes, is especially powerful because the two are processed in different parts of the brain, and “open our heart to other people without duping us into mistaking our own desires for the laws of reality.” The “Stress Transformer,” meanwhile, shows how Frankenstein led to such modern horror films as The Cabin in the Woods and considers the “physiological rush” from the fight-or-flight response and fictional scares. Fletcher proves that understanding the classics brings new life to the craft of literary creation. The result is a fresh take on the history of literature and a testament to the enduring power of reading. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

Aristotle’s Poetics was new and brave but was left incomplete. Angus Fletcher finishes it in Wonderworks with some help from contemporary science and an abundance of penetrating analyses. Fletcher endorses storytelling as a foundational technology but he goes beyond that to illustrate its therapeutic value and centrality to cultural invention. Wonderworks is the perfect counter to our season in hell.

Antonio Damasio

I’ve been living in Wonderworks for several weeks now, dazzled by its innovations, wild surmises, gifts of insight, unlikely readings and – perhaps most of all – its inspirational force. Angus Fletcher is that rare critic who actually has something to say, who grabs us by the collar and hopes to shake sense into us. This may be one of the most important and truly useful books about literature written in the past decade. It opens a vista into reading that regards writing as a kind of continual experiment in human and societal engineering. That Wonderworks deserves a wide audience goes without saying. It’s refreshing and remarkable on so many levels.”

Jay Parini

"Fascinating. . . . It blew my mind!"

Malcolm Gladwell

An epic, a masterpiece. Angus Fletcher has reached deep into history and far in contemporary neuroscience to give us a magisterial synthesis of why and how humans not just make literature but use it to navigate our worlds.

Blakely Vermeule

Extraordinary . . . Angus Fletcher has not only set out a radical vision of literature as a technology that helps us, he has also provided a wonderfully varied and generously introduced reading list . . . Wonderworks brings inspiration, and an exciting challenge, to read and to think hard about literature, and it's a pleasure to read.

Raphael Lyne

"If Wonderworks had been around then, I would have sat my son down and read Angus Fletcher’s exploration of the history and the psychology of literature to him, word by word. . . . I hope it will convince others that there are benefits and pleasures that you can get from literature that are unique and valuable."

The Guardian - Jane Smiley

Drawing upon insights from neuroscience and evolutionary biology, an expert in the art of storytelling explains why literature matters by showing, through lucid examples, the myriad ways that literature’s bag of tricks works with and for our minds. Anyone who has experienced wonder in an encounter with literature will profit from this wise and clever book.

Lawrence Manley

Wonderworks unleashes the transport, suspense, paradox, and power of stories. All the ideas glossed—from Aristotle and Shakespeare to contemporary neurosciences—exhibit the literary invention that constitute the subject of the book, creating a tour-de-force of knowledge, fantasy, and the desire to heal.

Rita Charon

"I'm totally obsessed with Wonderworks. It swallowed me whole."

Brené Brown

Wonderworks contains many instances of critical insight. . . . What’s most interesting about this compendium is its understanding of imaginative representation as a technology."

The New York Times - Sophie Gee

"An intelligent, engaged and erudite attempt to neurologically tackle not just some abstract and simplified 'story', but some of the world’s greatest narratives, from the Iliad to Dream of the Red Chamber, from Disney’s Up to the novels of Elena Ferrante. It speaks to the inner reader in us all, as well as to the inner neurologist."

New Scientist - Simon Ings

"Professor Angus Fletcher has discovered the incredible effects stories have on our minds. . . . [Fletcher] is a true polymath: both a neuroscientist and Yale-educated doctor of literature. He has combined his twin passions to unlock the psychological, physiological and pharmacological effects literature has on humans."

The Herald (Scotland) - Neil Mackay

"If you are interested in both writing and science this is an unmissable book. . . . Fresh and inspiring."

Popular Science - Brian Clegg

Find one polymath. Take a profound knowledge of world literature. Add a deep knowledge of modern psychology and of neuroscience. Add a cupful of worldly wisdom. Stir in an enchanting prose style. Heat until bubbling. You have just baked a unique, marvelous treat: Angus Fletcher’s Wonderworks.”

Martin Seligman

"Fascinating. . . . It blew my mind!"

Malcolm Gladwell

"I'm totally obsessed with Wonderworks. It swallowed me whole."

Brene Brown

01/08/2021

In this latest work, Fletcher (English, The Ohio State Univ.; Evolving Hamlet) has produced an orderly account of literary inventions throughout the centuries. The author skillfully draws attention to a number of inventions from global contexts and language backgrounds such as Zhuangzi's un-training of un-yin and un-yang in 5th century China, the invention of the psychedelic reading of "wonder" in 20th century England, and Plato's "serenity elevator" in 4th century BC Greece. A surprising element is the book's real-life application of the inventions, or, how does this work for one in real life? The missing piece in Fletcher's book is its lack of explicit statement-of-worldview under-girding the analysis. Specifically, the focus on the brain and literary allusions as well as references to deity as evidences of invention seems to portray there is no truth to the statements under examination. That being said, readers will be impressed by Fletcher's scope and inclusion of literary invention. VERDICT Wonderworks is for those readers who like to consider the history of literature, yes, but also those who like to think about the technical aspects of literary devices used across that history.—Jesse A. Lambertson, Univ. of Chicago Law Libs.

Library Journal

★ 2021-01-07
Reading good books doesn’t just entertain us; it teaches us how to better use our brains and our emotions, as this lively treatise tells us.

Fletcher, a professor of story science at Ohio State’s Project Narrative, holds doctorates in both literature and neuroscience, which meet fluently in this thought-packed survey. The long-held pedagogical view of literature, he writes, has instructed us “to see literature as a species of argument.” The author believes, however, that literature is a type of technology, “any human-made thing that helps to solve a problem.” Our problem is what to do when we think about such things as love, which, in terms of the storytelling about it, involves two elements: self-disclosure and wonder, “a feeling of awe, of specialness.” A good story about love “primes the dopamine neurons in the reward centers of our brain, sweetening our thoughts with a touch of pleasure.” So it is that Sappho’s love-drenched lyrics, a Chinese ode in the Shijing, and certain poems of Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman lead us to “discover wonder intimate.” There’s plenty of deep diving into the workings of the brain in discussions framed by works of literature, some well known and some not, as well as by genres. For example, horror stories “give us a fictional scare that tricks our brain into an invigorating fight-or-flight response.” That response, Fletcher recounts, implicates various parts of the body, from the hypothalamus to the kidneys, and it can yield an entertaining rush. Other emotions and mental states that are less easy to tame, such as shame, depression, and alienation, can also respond to literary prompts, yielding paranoia and anger. The trick to calming them? Maybe try reading Winnie-the-Pooh, which “instead of giving us a reason to quake at the imagination’s wilds…treats our brain’s fear regions entirely to fun."

An idiosyncratic, richly detailed, often lyrical invitation to reconsider how and why to read literature.

Kirkus Reviews