Knowledge and Emotion in the Playscript: Information Structuring in the Text and Readers’ Affective Reception

In this thesis, I argue that readers’ affective reception of a playscript is guided by the structuring of information in the text. The structure of interest is the information matrix: a summary of shifts to the relative amount and quality of information available to a reader as compared to every character in the story. When reading, we keep track of who-knows-what-when not by a logical stepwise evaluation but by an affective experience manifesting as emotion when narrativised. This thesis comprises a theoretical argument and an original playscript that serves both as a research simulation tool and as a demonstration of outcome.