Where angels and literary characters roam: Henry Corbin’s imaginal and the space of the fictional

This thesis investigates Henry Corbin’s phenomenology and hermeneutics and proposes that the ‘journey’ of reading in the space of the Fictional can be developed as a secular version of Corbin’s concept of the ‘journey of the soul’, the literary characters in the space of the Fictional standing in the place of Corbin’s religious ‘messengers’ and ‘angels.’

Via this argument, the thesis asks: to what extent Iranian-Islamic mysticism and Western philosophy converse meaningfully with each other, each maintaining their own language and concepts? Is it possible to mirror mystical concepts like the mundus imaginalis and the ‘journey of the soul’ with the concept of the space of the Fictional and reading novels, without losing the depth and the complexity of the mystical concepts?

The thesis engages with various of Corbin’s philosophical positions, among them his distinction between the hermeneutic of the text and the hermeneutic of the soul; the connection between manifestation and revelation; and the meaning of the symbol. Using Corbin’s philosophical concepts and his ‘recital’ way of reading a text, this thesis investigates the possibility and the merits of finding a concept of a ‘journey of the soul’ in a different mundus imaginalis with a different transcendence, one that does not unite with god, but can still unveil and reveal human beings to themselves in a way that is impossible in our real world. The thesis argues that the Fictional is ontologically a break from the real world, being neither necessary, nor possible nor actual. As such, it relates to the different worlds in Corbin’s journey with their roads, terrains and possibilities, which are impossibilities in the real world. The thesis maintains that the journey through the Fictional space involves a transcendence towards alterity, the discovery of our other, and that this is a unique journey of our singularity which, as in Corbin’s philosophy, can change us ontologically.