Visualising the Fantastique: a cognitive literary approach
Keywords: Charles Nodier
Fantastique
multimodal
cognitive literary theory
imageability
reading experiment
visualisation
emotions
guy de maupassant
prosper mérimée
reader response
ambiguity
Théophile Gautier
vividness

This thesis uses a cognitive literary framework and an experiment to investigate how nineteenth-century fantastique texts are visualised by the present-day reader. Numerous researchers (Schneider 1985, Castex 1956, Cumminskey 1992, Baronian 1978, Brown 1996) have discussed the history and concept of the fantastique. However, it seems to be commonly agreed that it is a challenge to define what is unique about the fantastique, particularly in relation to similar genres such as horror. Tzvetan Todorov’s Introduction à la littérature fantastique (1970) argued that the fantastique is unique because of the reader’s hesitation when reading the possibly supernatural incident featured in every text of the genre. While his theory has since been questioned for its broad assumptions about how all readers respond (Lem 1974) and for describing rather than analysing (Whitehead 2006), Todorov persuasively argued that the fantastique uniquely features an ambiguously supernatural incident.
The thesis will explore whether this ambiguously supernatural incident unique to the genre creates a difference in the vividness with which a reader visualises fantastique versus non-fantastique texts. I present the hypothesis that the ambiguity in the fantastique leads the reader to have a larger range of vividness. More specifically, we might expect the reader’s vividness to increase with the unexpected intrusion of the ambiguously supernatural incident and then to decrease as they attempt to reconcile the ambiguity with the narrative they were following. The thesis considers eight fantastique texts: Une Heure ou la Vision (1806) and Inès de las Sierras (1836) by Charles Nodier, La Cafetière (1831) and La Morte Amoureuse (1836) by Théophile Gautier, and La Vision de Charles XI (1829) and La Vénus d’Ille (1837) by Prosper Mérimée are analysed for possible spikes and drops in vividness. An experiment was also conducted using Guy de Maupassant’s Lui ? and Apparition (1883) in which participants read the original text, or a modified version without the ambiguously supernatural incident, and reported their vividness of visualisation.
Chapter 1, ‘The Influence of Non-Text Elements when Visualising the fantastique’, identifies individual differences between readers and key differences in past and present publications of the corpus texts which could affect a present-day reader’s vividness of visualisation. This allows for a discussion of the extent to which it is possible to consider vividness responses as directly affected by the text content rather than any external factors. Chapter 2, ‘What Makes a Visual Mental Image Vivid?’, then explores what is likely to heighten vividness of visualisation across different fantastique texts using four factors: perceptual strength, emotionally evocative writing, kinaesthetic imagery, and deceleration of kinaesthetic imagery. Chapter 3, ‘Auditory and Haptic Imagery in the fantastique’, considers the role played by the auditory and haptic imagery often featured in the ambiguously supernatural incident. Chapter 4, ‘The Experiment: Design, Hypotheses, and Results’ outlines the methodology and results of the experiment conducted with Marks’s VVIQ (1973). The final chapter, ‘Visualising Lui and Apparition’, synthesises the experiment results with the earlier analyses.