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Licensed Unlicensed Requires Authentication Published by De Gruyter Mouton April 25, 2018

Sensory representation in literature

  • Frank Nuessel EMAIL logo
From the journal Semiotica

Abstract

The five senses (vision, audition, touch, olfaction, gustation) constitute the essence of our ability to interact with the external world and make sense of it. This contact is transmitted through various sensory organs and the information for each sense is transmitted to and translated in various parts of the brain. The anatomical and physiological aspects of this external-internal interface are complex. Likewise, the philosophical approaches to this world-body communication and comprehension involves at least two perspectives, namely, the rationalist viewpoint (perception is brain-determined) and empirical (perception is externally acquired). This essay discusses how creative writers re-create sensory experience in their texts. It will examine each of the five senses and the strategies employed by authors to stimulate and arouse memories of previous reader experience both synchronically and diachronically. Writer and reader co-create and co-participate in this process.

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Published Online: 2018-4-25
Published in Print: 2018-4-25

© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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