Cognitive mapping and social cognition in ancient Greek narrative: novelistic couples

Abstract

Although individual and collective minds in the ancient world have received considerable scholarly attention, the cognitive dynamics of social interaction itself – particularly the role of cognition in intimate relationships – remain largely unexplored. This article addresses this gap by introducing the concept of ‘cognitive mapping’ and applying it to couples in the five extant ancient Greek novels as a case study. Cognitive mapping offers a framework for analysing how novelistic couples alternate between alignment, in which partners share cognitive and emotional states, and misalignment, in which misunderstandings disrupt relational harmony. By tracing how lovers map one another’s emotions, intentions and desires through embodied processes and shared experiences, this study sheds new light on character interaction, plot development and reader engagement. It further demonstrates how novelistic narratives construct the couple as an interdependent cognitive system, in which lovers think, feel and respond as a single unit. This approach has broader implications for the study of personal identity, couples’ psychology and embodied interpersonal relations in the ancient world, as well as for ancient narrative theory and contemporary cognitive approaches to classical literature.