 Through the latter part of the twentieth century, theoretical and interpretive studies of literature have been somewhat hostile to both cognitive and aesthetic inquiry, often thought of as irrelevant to serious interpretive work and a distraction from favoured political agendas. Cognitive studies of literature have developed somewhat in the last twenty years but remain a minority enterprise (Hartner 2017). One question of long standing that has concerned scholars in psychology, literary studies and aesthetics is the idea that we learn from literature about the world beyond the text, an idea treated with some suspicion by those influenced by deconstructive or post-modern theorising, who argue that such ambitions depend on failing to realise that characters of fiction are not, and are not like, real people (Cixous 1974). Others argue that such cognitive benefits, if they exist, are not aesthetically relevant (Lamarque &amp; Olsen 1994: ch. 17; for criticism see Gaut 2007: ch. 7; Currie 2020: §9.6). There is, however, a strong tendency to suppose that the artistic merit of, say, a Shakespearean drama depends in part on our sense that it is revelatory of deep insights into the human condition. Similar claims are made for other arts; contemplating van Gogh’s lithograph Sorrow Kendall Walton notes responding imaginatively to the woman in ways that “gain for me an understanding of what a particular sorrow is like” (2008: 78).