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This book offers a psychological account of thrills (goosebumps and tears), of the epiphanic experience of seeing ordinary things in a profoundly new way, and of the experience of the sublime. The unifying characteristic of these ‘strong experiences’ is that they all begin with surprise. They are important in literature: literature is about these experiences, and literature can cause these experiences. This book offers an overview of theories of these kinds of experience, and of what might cause them to happen. In the final chapter, various literary strategies are explored as possible causes. The book draws on psychological accounts of surprise, and of emotion, and cognitive approaches to what knowledge is, why it is possible to have feelings of profound knowledge, and why what we know can sometimes not be put into words.
‘Cognitive literary study has tended to confine itself to a few approaches. Nigel Fabb’s exciting new book reminds us that there is a vast range of underutilized cognitive research and theorization that may contribute greatly to our understanding of literary reception, significantly extending the scope of psychological explanation of literature.’ – Patrick Colm Hogan, author of Beauty and Sublimity: A Cognitive Aesthetics of Literature and the Arts (2016).
Acknowledgements; Dedication; 1. Introduction: Strong experiences and what causes them; 2. The study of strong experiences; 3. Epistemic feelings and knowledge; 4. Arousal, emotion and strong experiences; 5. The psychological background; 6. How literature triggers strong experiences; 7. Conclusions; Bibliography; Index