ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the theoretical background of the two major themes I plan to work with in the literary analyses in the second half of the book. In other words, it explains how neuro-narratology should start to approach the themes of space and (negative) emotions. Theorists of second-generation cognitive science and neuropsychology imagine abstract cognitive processes as being built on and feeding on lower-level cognitive processes. One of these fundamental processes is arguably the construction of spatial experience and orientation in space. Preverbal conceptual representation is chiefly composed of information derived from the body, so much so that according to the neuropsychology of spatial experience, human mental development fundamentally evolves from spatial concepts. This chapter discusses the perception of space, the role of spatial experience in cognition and language use in general, and the potential underlying neural deficits of spatial perception that may be significant in narrative intelligence and narrative comprehension. It also discusses negative emotions, focusing on fear and anxiety, because there are important correlations between negative emotions and brain states and structures. In the literary analyses of the book, these emotions appear as dominant and embodied central phenomena that heavily take part in the makeup of the narrative.
