Mindreading is the human ability to look at a person or a literary character and
contemplate what that person is thinking, feeling, and planning. In this dissertation I identify two
methods of mindreading: inference and imagination. Shakespeare uses both methods, at times
constructing characters by referring to theories of human behavior (inference), at times by
referring to the particular perspective of a character (imagination). I engage current debates about
the usefulness of character criticism, but I begin by addressing L. C. Knights' tongue-in-cheek
question, "How many children had Lady Macbeth?" Knights crystallized discontent with
nineteenth-century character criticism, a discontent that was picked up by American new critics
and subsequently post-structuralist critics of many stripes. Like Michael Bristol, Jessica Slights,
and Paul Yachnin, I argue for a literary criticism that considers characters as if they were real
people living in recognizable worlds. I add to this conversation by using terms and concepts from
cognitive science that provide clarity to discussions of character. Theories of mindreading offer
criticism a language with which to analyze moments of reading and misreading and to consider
the mental workings of fictional characters in Shakespeare's plays.
