The present paper describes a cognitive and computational model of literature appreciation. Thinking and emotion processes involved in literary text processing are analyzed and a layered model of comprehension-appreciation is proposed. Based on psychological experiments, a computational algorithm for a story appreciation mechanism was constructed on a goal/plan based knowledge architecture. Our analysis of aesthetic emotions related to rhetoric aspects of literary texts suggests a cognitive (appraisal and action readiness) structure for aesthetic experiences. Partial implementations of aesthetic processing evoked by a passage from a poetry are described. Finally, the paper discusses an artificial brain approach aimed to unify the mind level theories and the brain level findings.
