ABSTRACT
The theoretical and practical study of literary narratives has produced multiple and contradictory ways of explaining their structure, function, and meaning. Currently, there is no consensus as to what makes a good literary narrative, how it is understood, and why it plays such an irreplaceable role in human experience. Most broadly, work on narrative can be divided between positivistic and hermeneutic approaches, although that very division often cuts across individual disciplines and even theorists. While cognitive science has aspired to represent the true marriage of humanistic and scientific ways of understanding, this merging of aims is only just beginning to be realized in what is termed 'enactive cognitive science'. The chapter attempts to frame some common research topics between the theoretical studies of narrative. Finally, the chapter considers an understanding of literary narrative as a form of social cognition and situates the notion of narrativity in relation to the enactive paradigm of human cognition.
