Aesthetic Illusion as an Effect of Fiction

Aesthetic illusion is one of the most attractive effects of literature and other media. However, there is surprisingly little research on this phenomenon in English. Focussing on narrative fiction, the article analyzes aesthetic illusion as the impression of being recentered in a possible world as if it were (a slice of) life. This impression is produced during a process of reception and emerges as the product of a cooperation between the recipient, the cultural context and, most importantly, the text as the guiding “script” of the recipient's illusion. Aesthetic illusion consists in a dominant feeling of experiential immersion, but also--as opposed to various states of “delusion”--in a latent awareness of fictionality. The article moreover contains a discussion of typical features of illusionist fiction and of basic textual factors (‘principles of illusion-making’) that contribute to the emergence of aesthetic illusion. It concludes with some remarks on the functions of aesthetic illusion, its derivate, the breaking of illusion, and desiderata for further, in particular cognitive research, which should complement the present, text-centered theory of illusion.