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

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.