ABSTRACT
The experience of literature can be one of rational decision-making and creative meaning construction – cognition in the older, narrower sense of understanding. However, reading literature is often and perhaps even mainly an emotional process, a felt experience, offering a bodily frisson of excitement and pleasure, the prickling of the hairs on the back of your neck and a line or an idea or a phrase or an event that makes you catch your breath, and remember it for a long time afterwards. Literary worlds often feel authentic, tangible, and compelling, and the process of reading can feel absorbing to the exclusion of other senses. Literary worlds can feel like places in our psychic lives, with a feeling of atmosphere and an emotional connection with characters.
