A Theory of Thrills, Sublime and Epiphany in Literature

‘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).

‘Nigel Fabb has written a wonderfully informative book exploring the ineffable thrills and chills that can make literature so compelling to readers. Fabb presents a taxonomy of strong emotional experiences based on an encyclopedic tour of the pertinent philosophical, psychological, physiological and literary ideas. A major contribution to the scientific understanding of the literary experience.’ – David Huron, PhD, Arts and Humanities Distinguished Professor, Ohio State University, USA.

‘Nigel Fabb’s book is the fruit of decades of gestation and condenses a lifetime of research into a clear, exciting and illuminating argument. He provides insights into how the ordinary becomes extraordinary in everyday life and how that helps us understand the complex process of aesthetic practice and the ways people are affected by aesthetic forms. Surprise and the strong experiences it can generate, and the sublime and epiphany are organizing tropes that show commonalities and differences across different modes of expression. As Fabb writes, these are ‘ways of grouping certain experiences which might be related, with the goal of understanding why they arise’. They are fundamental to the ways in which people experience being in the world and are integral to aesthetic practices. The book helps us understand how, in different ways and different genres, artists can create sublime moments which may or may not be accompanied by a sense of understanding or realization. At times reading this book produced my own moments of epiphany!’ – Howard Morphy FASSA. FAHA., Emeritus Professor, Head of the Centre for Digital Humanities Research, Research School of Humanities and the Arts, Australian National University, AUS.

‘Professor Nigel Fabb’s book is a highly interesting and successful attempt at gathering diverse aesthetic phenomena and affective experiences of literature under the common rubric of “strong experiences”, and to seek a general, simple and unified account of such experiences in surprise. Fabb thoroughly and clearly explains how the two kinds of surprises, “surprise caused by a perception, and metacognitive surprise about the perception itself” lead to such strong experiences. This book will be of great relevance to scholars and students of literature, aesthetics and psychology.’ – Thor Magnus Tangerås, Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Narrative Methods, Kristiania University College, Norway.