Glossary of Literary Theory by Greig E. Henderson and Christopher Brown

Empathy:

A translation of Hermann Lotze's term Einfühlung (literally, "feeling into"). It describes a person's projective capacity to identify imaginatively with and to participate in the feelings and situations evoked by a work of art. More generally, it refers to an act of self-projection, an identification between a human subject and a human, nonhuman, or inanimate object. (See also Sympathy.)