Toward Apperception Theory. A Cognitive Approach to the Fantastic as Linkage. Definition and Examples from Edgar Allan Poe

Paolo Remorini

doi:10.28914/Atlantis-2025-47.2.16

Authors

Paolo Remorini Universidad de Granada https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8127-2993

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.28914/Atlantis-2025-47.2.16

Keywords:

fantastic literature, apperception theory, embodied simulation, cognitive literary studies, Edgar Allan Poe

Abstract

I present here a new theory concerning fantastic literature—which I have called apperception theory—by connecting two distinct scientific dialogues. Taking into account research in recent decades in the epistemology of complexity, cognitive science and Cognitive Literary Studies—embodied simulation, mirror neurons, intersubjectivity—I define the fantastic as the linkage that can emerge from a modification of our linguistic, narrative and paradigmatic apperceptions either as an anomaly or through the alteration or transgression of at least one of the cognitive levels that operate in any narrative experience. Therefore, I offer an interpretive alternative in the polarised debate between the fantastic as a literary genre (Todorov 1970) and the fantastic as a narrative mode (Bessière 1973). Also, through the analysis of specific stories by Edgar Allan Poe, I develop an analytic model to identify the degree and depth of fantastic linkages that emerge from apperceptive connections.

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Author Biography

Paolo Remorini, Universidad de Granada

Paolo Remorini teaches Italian Language and Culture and Spanish and Latin American Literature at the Center for Modern Languages of the University of Granada. He holds a Ph.D. in the “Languages, Texts and Contexts” program at the UGR. His main field of research has been the study of Fantastic Literature of the twentieth and twenty-first century using a cognitive approach. He is also a literary translator and editor.

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