In my master’s thesis I focus on the connection between literature, music and empathy. In the first part of the thesis, I try to illuminate this connection with presentation of key concepts such as empathy, emotions, atmosphere and theory of mind and previous research in this field, focusing on the impact of literature on readers’ emotions and empathy. I also focused on the influence of music on the listener thereby identifying hot poetry and music interact. In the research part of the master’s thesis I try to determine whether music enhances emotional and empathic experience and how music and poetry interact at the level of empathic experience. (Higher) empathy is particularly influenced by frequent reading of literature and gender – female participants were more empathetic than men. The greatest empathic response was experienced by those participants who listened to both – poetry and music combined.
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