How do we entertain ourselves with literary texts?

We argue that entertainment experiences as individual responses to literary texts have not been sufficiently studied in the past. Literary scholars have long regarded entertainment as an inappropriate response to literature. Likewise, psychologists and communications scholars have been hesitant to study entertainment as an effect of literary reading, arguably because those responses have been seen as too complex to fit into given explanations of entertainment. But entertainment theory has advanced recently and now tries to include more complex responses to media content. Those responses include affective states which are other than simply pleasure-driven.. The idea of entertainment as a response that can imply enjoyment, appreciation, or both allows and provides an explanation of readers’ responses to literary texts that goes beyond purely hedonistic motivations.