Cognitive Poetics

A masterly presentation of the cognitive turn in literary reading and anal-ysis, providing a radical re-evaluation of literary activity. an invaluabletext and an important contribution to the emerging field of cognitive poeticsas a literary science.

Margaret H. Freeman, Los Angeles Valley College, USA

In this book, Peter Stockwell presents a delightful combination of theoreticalenlightenment with a deep concern for practical analysis and understanding.

Willie van Peer, Munich University, Germany

Cognitive poetics is a new way of thinking about literature, involving theapplication of cognitive linguistics and psychology to literary texts. Thisbook is the first introductory text to this growing field.

In Cognitive Poetics: An Introduction, the reader is encouraged to re-evaluatethe categories used to understand literary reading and analysis. Covering awide range of literary genres and historical periods, the book encompassesboth American and European approaches. Each chapter explores a differentcognitive poetic framework and relates it to a literary text. Including a range ofactivities, discussion points, suggestions for further reading and a glossarialindex, the book is both interactive and highly accessible.

Cognitive Poetics: An Introduction is essential reading for students onstylistics and literary-linguistics courses, and will be of interest to all thoseinvolved in literary studies, critical theory and linguistics.

Peter Stockwell is Senior Lecturer at the University of Nottingham. His publica-tions include Sociolinguistics: A Resource Book for Students, ContextualizedStylistics: An Introduction to the Nature and Functions of Language (withHoward Jackson) and The Poetics of Science Fiction.

Cognitive PoeticsAn introduction

Peter Stockwell

London and New York

First published 2002by Routledge11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canadaby Routledge29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

2002 Peter Stockwell

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted orreproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafterinvented, including photocopying and recording, or in anyinformation storage or retrieval system, without permission inwriting from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is availablefrom the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication DataA catalog record for this book has been requested

ISBN 0415258944 (hbk)ISBN 0415258952 (pbk)

This edition published in the Taylor and Francis e-Library, 2005.

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ISBN 0-203-99514-7 Master e-book ISBN

Contents ContentsContents

Acknowledgements ix

1 Introduction: body, mind and literature 1

2 Figures and grounds 13

Preview 13Links with literary critical concepts 14Figure and ground 15Attention 18Discussion 20Cognitive poetic analysis: Ted Hughes 21Explorations 24Further reading and references 25

3 Prototypes and reading 27

Preview 27Links with literary critical concepts 27Prototypes 28Categories 31Cognitive models 32Discussion 34Cognitive poetic analysis: parodies 35Explorations 39Further reading and references 40

4 Cognitive deixis 41

Preview 41Links with literary critical concepts 41

Deixis 43Deictic shift theory 46Discussion 49Cognitive poetic analysis: Wuthering Heights 50Explorations 55Further reading and references 56

5 Cognitive grammar 59

Preview 59Links with literary critical concepts 59Stylistic prototypicality 60Action chains 64Discussion 66Cognitive poetic analysis: George Herbert 67Explorations 70Further reading and references 73

6 Scripts and schemas 75

Preview 75Links with literary critical concepts 76Conceptual dependency 76Literary schemas 78Discussion 81Cognitive poetic analysis: The Dream of the Rood 82Explorations 87Further reading and references 88

7 Discourse worlds and mental spaces 91

Preview 91Links with literary critical concepts 91Possible worlds and discourse worlds 92Mental spaces 96Discussion 98Cognitive poetic analysis: science fiction 99Explorations 103Further reading and references 103

vi Contents

8 Conceptual metaphor 105

Preview 105Links with literary critical concepts 106Metaphor as mapping 106Conceptual metaphor 109Discussion 111Cognitive poetic analysis: surrealism 112Explorations 117Further reading and references 119

9 Literature as parable 121

Preview 121Links with literary critical concepts 121Meaning and macrostructure 122Parable and projection 124Discussion 127Cognitive poetic analysis: Middle English allegories 128Explorations 132Further reading and references 133

10 Text worlds 135

Preview 135Links with literary critical concepts 135Text worlds and participants 136Sub-worlds 140Discussion 142Cognitive poetic analysis: John Keats 143Explorations 148Further reading and references 149

11 The comprehension of literature 151

Preview 151Links with literary critical concepts 151Experiencing literary narratives 152Narrative comprehension 155Discussion 158Cognitive poetic analysis: Oscar Wilde 158Explorations 162Further reading and references 163

Contents vii

12 The last words 165

Review 165Texture 167Discourse 168Ideology 170Emotion 171Imagination 173Beginning cognitive poetics 174References 175Key readings in cognitive poetics 175

Bibliography 177Glossarial index 189

viii Contents

Acknowledgements AcknowledgementsAcknowledgements

In the beginning, it was all Peter Verdonks idea. Several years ago, at a res-taurant in a Hungarian forest, he suggested with his usual quiet wise smilethat I should write a textbook on cognitive approaches to literature. The con-ception of the book has changed quite a bit since then, and the field itself hasacquired a name and a firmer set of borders, but the shape of this book andits mere existence owe a great deal to the inspiration and influence he hasexerted over all that time.

I have also been encouraged by many other people who were there on thatoccasion, and who have helped me with their work, ideas and discussionsever since. Many thanks to Michael Burke, Charles Forceville, Don Freeman,Margaret Freeman, to Katie Wales for being there in spirit and to LouisaSemlyen for her support and foresight in commissioning this book and itscompanion volume.

I am fortunate in the generosity of my colleagues and friends. Through thePoetics and Linguistics Association (PALA), I have benefited from many andlate discussions with the best minds and their most precise criticism. I am espe-cially grateful to my fellow committee members over the years: Tony Bex,Urszula Clark, Catherine Emmott, Keith Green, Lesley Jeffries, Willie vanPeer, Martin Wynne and Sonia Zyngier. For specific ideas and startling discus-sions, I am indebted to Jayne Carroll, Peter Crisp, Szilvia Csabi, JonathanCulpeper, Monika Fludernik, Ray Gibbs, Laura Hidalgo Downing, RocioMontoro, Mary Ellen Ryder, Elena Semino, Mick Short, Paul Simpson,Gerard Steen, Michael Toolan, and particularly Reuven Tsur; and I would liketo acknowledge with fond memory conversations with the late Paul Werth.

The academic community at Nottingham University has been a richsource of ideas and inspiration. The philosophy here of language study in aradical, engaged and humane context makes it one of the most fruitful andexciting places to work and think. In particular I have learnt more than theywould realise from my colleagues Robert Adlington, Svenja Adolphs, RobertCockcroft, Janette Dillon, Zoltan Drnyei, Val Durow, Craig Hamilton,Mike McCarthy, John McRae, Louise Mullany, Bill Nash, Mark Robsonand Norbert Schmitt. This community owes much to the astonishing energyof Ron Carter and I am grateful for all his support and the apparently

boundless enthusiasm and intellectual rigour which sustains the study ofmodern English language at Nottingham. I have developed many ideas andhad my own thinking sharpened by my research colleagues Dany Badran, IdaBahar, Tracy Cruickshank, Christiana Gregoriou, Ernestine Lahey, AhmedMeliebary, Salwa Nugali, and by the students who took my cognitive poeticscourse, out of which I wrote this book.

I have been supported, encouraged and loved through all my work andthinking by my wife Joanna Gavins. This book is as much hers as mine.

Not all of these people agree with my ideas or the way I have shaped thebook, but as Don Freeman once said to me, the only real criticism comes fromyour friends. I have incorporated many changes as a result of this friendly fire.Though of course I am responsible for all my schematic readings of their ideas,I hope the book emerges in a form they would recognise and approve.

Finally, I am grateful to the following for permission to reproduce copy-right material: the estate of Ted Hughes, and Faber and Faber publishers, forHill-stone was content, and Bill Nash for Vakum clenere and Milkmeneverywhere. While every effort has been made to contact copyright holders,we would be pleased to hear of any that have been omitted.

x Acknowledgements

1 IntroductionBody, mind and literature IntroductionIntroduction

Cognitive poetics is all about reading literature. That sentence looks simpleto the point of seeming trivial. It could even be seen simply as a close repeti-tion, since cognition is to do with the mental processes involved in reading,and poetics concerns the c