Beyond the Aesthetics-Persuasion Divide: An Aristotelian Approach to Climate Fiction

In studies of climate fiction (cli-fi), a tension often arises between two interpretations of the genre: on one hand, cli-fi is seen as a persuasive tool intended to raise public awareness of the climate crisis; on the other, it is viewed as an autonomous literary form, to be assessed primarily for its aesthetic value. This paper contends that this opposition is a false dichotomy and proposes to reinterpret it in light of Aristotelian theories of Rhetoric and Poetics. In Aristotle, the aesthetic and persuasive dimensions are not separate domains but complementary aspects of a single cognitive process, through which discourse generates knowledge by means of pleasure. By comparing this theoretical perspective with contemporary models of narrative persuasion, the paper shows that the persuasive power of cli-fi stems precisely from its aesthetic qualities: the creation of vivid and coherent narrative worlds that allow readers to simulate climatic scenarios and reorganize their emotional and cognitive experience of the environmental crisis.