In science fiction journalism, a sense of wonder (sometimes comically written as sensawunda) is a term used in science fiction criticism to describe a distinctive, often desirable, emotional and intellectual response of awe, estrangement, or sudden insight prompted by imaginative speculation. It typically occurs when readers confront ideas that expand their sense of what is possible, such as vast scales of space and time, unfamiliar technologies, or unexpected shifts in perspective. While most closely associated with science fiction, the concept is often linked to broader aesthetic traditions, especially the sublime, as discussed by Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant, in which encounters with immensity or complexity challenge ordinary perception.
Definitions In Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction the term sense of wonder is defined as follows:
SENSE OF WONDER n. a feeling of awakening or awe triggered by an expansion of one's awareness of what is possible or by confrontation with the vastness of space and time, as brought on by reading science fiction. The phrase "sense of wonder" is widely referred to in the context of science fiction, although the concept is applicable just as well to a broader usage. Jon Radoff has characterised a sense of wonder as an emotional reaction to the reader suddenly confronting, understanding, or seeing a concept anew in the context of new information. In the introductory section of his essay 'On the Grotesque in Science Fiction', Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jr., Professor of English, DePauw University, states:
The so-called sense of wonder has been considered one of the primary attributes of sf at least since the pulp era. The titles of the most popular sf magazines of that period—Astounding, Amazing, Wonder Stories, Thrilling, Startling, etc.—clearly indicate that the putative cognitive value of sf stories is more than counter-balanced by an affective power, to which, in fact, the scientific content is expected to submit. John Clute and Peter Nicholls associate the experience with that of the "conceptual breakthrough" or "paradigm shift" (Clute & Nicholls 1993). In many cases, it is achieved through the recasting of previous narrative experiences in a larger context. It can be found in short scenes (e.g., in Star Wars (1977), it can be found, in a small dose, inside the line "That's no moon; it's a space station.") and it can require entire novels to set up (as in the final line to Iain Banks's Feersum Endjinn.) George Mann defines the term as "the sense of inspired awe that is aroused in a reader when the full implications of an event or action become realized, or when the immensity of a plot or idea first becomes known;" and he associates the term with the Golden Age of SF and the pulp magazines prevalent at the time. One of the major writers of the Golden Age, Isaac Asimov, agreed with this association: in 1967 commenting on the changes occurring in SF he wrote,
And because today's real life so resembles day-before-yesterday's fantasy, the old-time fans are restless. Deep within, whether they admit it or not, is a feeling of disappointment and even outrage that the outer world has invaded their private domain. They feel the loss of a "sense of wonder" because what was once truly confined to "wonder" has now become prosaic and mundane.
As a concept especially connected with science fiction George Mann suggests that this 'sense of wonder' is associated only with science fiction as distinct from science fantasy, stating:
It is this insistence on fundamental realism that has caused Verne's novels to be retrospectively seen as of key importance in the development of SF. ...—people in droves came to the books looking for adventure and got it, but with an edge of scientific inquiry that left them with a new, very different sense of wonder. The magic of the realms of fantasy had been superseded by the fascination of speculation rooted in reality. However, the editor and critic David Hartwell sees SF's 'sense of wonder' in more general terms, as "being at the root of the excitement of science fiction". For Hartwell, "Science fiction's appeal lies in combination of the rational, the believable, with the miraculous." Academic criticism of science fiction literature (Robu 1988) identifies the idea of the sublime described by Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant—infinity, immensity, "delightful horror"—as a key to understanding the concept of "sense of wonder" in science fiction. For example, Professor of English at the University of Iowa, Brooks Landon says:
Reference to this "sense of wonder", a term appropriated and popularized by Damon Knight, appear over and over in twentieth-century discussions of SF and may at least in part reflect SF's debt to its Gothic and Romantic forerunners. Brian Aldiss and David Wingrove's history of science fiction, Trillion Year Spree, also invokes Gothic horror and the concept of the sublime. Paul K. Alkon does likewise in his book on science fiction before 1900, arguing that science fiction provides a way to "achieve sublimity without recourse to the supernatural." Edward James, in a section of his book entitled 'The Sense of Wonder' says on this point of the origin of the 'sense of wonder' in SF:
That the concept of the Sublime, a major aesthetic criterion of the Romantic era, has a close connection with the pleasures derived from reading sf has long been recognized by readers and critics, even if that word has seldom been used. The phrase that has been used, and which to a large extent corresponds, is 'Sense of Wonder' (sometimes jocularly or cynically abbreviated to 'sensawunda'). The very first collection of sf criticism was Damon Knight's In Search of Wonder (1956). James goes on to explore the same point as made by David Hartwell in his book Age of Wonders (and quoted above) as regards the relationship of the 'sense of wonder' in SF to religion or the religious experience. He states that:
...in doing so, it [science fiction] can create a rival sense of wonder, which acts almost as a replacement religion: a religion for those deprived of all traditional certainties in the wake of Darwin, Einstein, Plank [sic], Godel, and Heisenberg. As an example James takes the short story 'The Nine Billion Names of God' by Arthur C. Clarke. He explains:
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
