This article examines three poems by Emily Dickinson through a cognitive rhetorical lens, focusing on their figurative language and how it functions persuasively. The author argues for a cognitive rhetoric approach to poetry that is grounded in classical rhetoric theories as well as cognitive linguistic theories of figurative language. The three Dickinson poems analyzed - F372, F598, and F1381 - serve as examples of how poetry uses figurative language rhetorically to shape readers' understanding.
This document discusses various concepts and terms used in literary criticism, including:
- Affective fallacy and intentional fallacy, which were concepts introduced by Wimsatt and Beardsley regarding separating a work from reader response and authorial intent.
- Pathetic fallacy, allegory, allusion, ambiguity, and other concepts related to interpreting and analyzing literature.
- Archetype, binary opposition, carnival theory, conventions, contradiction, and other terms used in structuralist and post-structuralist criticism to examine cultural and linguistic patterns.
Here are some examples of key literary terms found in poetry and their definitions:
Imagery- Language that appeals to one or more of the five senses to create a vivid picture in the reader's mind. For example, describing the "sweet scent of roses" creates an olfactory image.
Tone- The attitude of the writer towards the subject matter. Tone can be serious, playful, sarcastic, solemn, etc.
Theme- The underlying message or big idea explored in a literary work. The theme is not directly stated but revealed through events and characters.
Symbolism- When an object or idea represents or stands for something else, especially something abstract. Symbols often represent complex ideas or concepts.
This document discusses various approaches to literary criticism and analysis of biblical texts like Genesis 1-3. It mentions form criticism, narrative structures, discourse analysis, and analyzing features like plot, characters, points of view, analogies, and repetitions. Scholars discussed include Fokkelman, Auerbach, Trible, Foxx Gillingham, and Brueggemann. The document also addresses questions around what constitutes literature and literary theory and criticism.
A certain prejudice sometimes alleges that allegories are outmoded metaphorical devices but as one literary scholar has note a traveller may be a symbol of a pilgrim or seeker of truth and a mountain may be a symbol of the soul's aspiration but once the traveller has set foot towards a mountain an allegory arises irrespective of the author's intentions as subconscious forces in the mind flow into the process of poetic creation.
This document provides an overview of literary theory and criticism, beginning with definitions and outlining some of the major approaches and their histories, including New Criticism, structuralism, Marxist criticism, reader-response criticism, psychoanalytic criticism, and ecocriticism. It discusses key figures like I.A. Richards, Frye, Barthes, and Derrida. It also contrasts New Criticism with reader-response theory and outlines some critiques of New Criticism's approach. Finally, it considers the relationship between theories and Theory as an academic institution and discourse.
Collapsing the borderline a deep semantic study of rilke’s “elegy ii”Alexander Decker
This summary provides the key details from the document in 3 sentences:
This document analyzes Rilke's poem "Elegy II" using Paul Ricoeur's theory of "Deep Semantics" to understand the deeper meanings beyond what the text directly states. It first provides background on literature and discourse, and defines Deep Semantics as involving both explanation of what the text says and interpretation of the worlds suggested by the text. The analysis then examines how the opening line of "Elegy II" establishes motifs of terror and flight associated with angels that collapse ordinary meanings of signs.
This document provides an introduction to analyzing Neil Gaiman's graphic novel The Sandman using principles from Horace's Ars Poetica as a framework. It summarizes the key topics covered in the Ars Poetica that will be used for analysis. These include the use of language and technique, artistic handling of literary material, dramatic and visual presentation, and the role of the poet. The document argues that while comics were once seen as trivial, The Sandman demonstrates their ability for serious literary discourse, and the Ars Poetica continues to provide relevant aesthetic principles despite its age.
According to Goethe's drama FAUST PART I Faust struggles with the issue as to how he should choose the most fitting word with which to render the sense of 'logos in the Greek New Testament. He decides on TAT (deed, act) instead of the more commonly accepted WORT (word, verbum). Much later leon Trotsky accused the Russian Formalists of siding with Saint John in lending words a religious aura while he sided with Faust in the assertion: in the beginning was the deed. Who was right?
n
This document discusses various concepts and terms used in literary criticism, including:
- Affective fallacy and intentional fallacy, which were concepts introduced by Wimsatt and Beardsley regarding separating a work from reader response and authorial intent.
- Pathetic fallacy, allegory, allusion, ambiguity, and other concepts related to interpreting and analyzing literature.
- Archetype, binary opposition, carnival theory, conventions, contradiction, and other terms used in structuralist and post-structuralist criticism to examine cultural and linguistic patterns.
Here are some examples of key literary terms found in poetry and their definitions:
Imagery- Language that appeals to one or more of the five senses to create a vivid picture in the reader's mind. For example, describing the "sweet scent of roses" creates an olfactory image.
Tone- The attitude of the writer towards the subject matter. Tone can be serious, playful, sarcastic, solemn, etc.
Theme- The underlying message or big idea explored in a literary work. The theme is not directly stated but revealed through events and characters.
Symbolism- When an object or idea represents or stands for something else, especially something abstract. Symbols often represent complex ideas or concepts.
This document discusses various approaches to literary criticism and analysis of biblical texts like Genesis 1-3. It mentions form criticism, narrative structures, discourse analysis, and analyzing features like plot, characters, points of view, analogies, and repetitions. Scholars discussed include Fokkelman, Auerbach, Trible, Foxx Gillingham, and Brueggemann. The document also addresses questions around what constitutes literature and literary theory and criticism.
A certain prejudice sometimes alleges that allegories are outmoded metaphorical devices but as one literary scholar has note a traveller may be a symbol of a pilgrim or seeker of truth and a mountain may be a symbol of the soul's aspiration but once the traveller has set foot towards a mountain an allegory arises irrespective of the author's intentions as subconscious forces in the mind flow into the process of poetic creation.
This document provides an overview of literary theory and criticism, beginning with definitions and outlining some of the major approaches and their histories, including New Criticism, structuralism, Marxist criticism, reader-response criticism, psychoanalytic criticism, and ecocriticism. It discusses key figures like I.A. Richards, Frye, Barthes, and Derrida. It also contrasts New Criticism with reader-response theory and outlines some critiques of New Criticism's approach. Finally, it considers the relationship between theories and Theory as an academic institution and discourse.
Collapsing the borderline a deep semantic study of rilke’s “elegy ii”Alexander Decker
This summary provides the key details from the document in 3 sentences:
This document analyzes Rilke's poem "Elegy II" using Paul Ricoeur's theory of "Deep Semantics" to understand the deeper meanings beyond what the text directly states. It first provides background on literature and discourse, and defines Deep Semantics as involving both explanation of what the text says and interpretation of the worlds suggested by the text. The analysis then examines how the opening line of "Elegy II" establishes motifs of terror and flight associated with angels that collapse ordinary meanings of signs.
This document provides an introduction to analyzing Neil Gaiman's graphic novel The Sandman using principles from Horace's Ars Poetica as a framework. It summarizes the key topics covered in the Ars Poetica that will be used for analysis. These include the use of language and technique, artistic handling of literary material, dramatic and visual presentation, and the role of the poet. The document argues that while comics were once seen as trivial, The Sandman demonstrates their ability for serious literary discourse, and the Ars Poetica continues to provide relevant aesthetic principles despite its age.
According to Goethe's drama FAUST PART I Faust struggles with the issue as to how he should choose the most fitting word with which to render the sense of 'logos in the Greek New Testament. He decides on TAT (deed, act) instead of the more commonly accepted WORT (word, verbum). Much later leon Trotsky accused the Russian Formalists of siding with Saint John in lending words a religious aura while he sided with Faust in the assertion: in the beginning was the deed. Who was right?
n
New Criticism was a literary theory that emphasized close reading of texts and considered works of literature as self-contained artifacts rather than as expressions of external biographical or historical contexts. It dominated American literary criticism between 1940-1960. New Critics believed the meaning of a text came from analyzing its formal elements like symbols, metaphors, and literary devices rather than the author's intentions or a reader's subjective response. They advocated an objective interpretation based solely on what was contained within the text itself.
Some scholars in the field of literary criticism and linguistic analysis occasionally refer to 'verbal clues.' This is particularly notable in the field of Robert Browning studies as in the case of a reference to 'pottage' in 'The Pied Piper of Hamelin.' Let us widen the scope of this interpretaion of verbal clues much more wide.
The document provides information on various literary concepts including defining literature, analyzing literature, poetry, figures of speech, imagery, symbols, sound features, and standard poetic forms. It discusses how literature includes works that have stood the test of time and influenced readers. Literary analysis involves careful observation and drawing conclusions to better understand how texts are structured. Poetry emerges from the meaning and arrangement of words on a page. Common figures of speech, imagery, symbols, and sound features are also outlined. Finally, standard poetic forms like sonnets and ballads are described.
This document provides a summary and review of Roland Barthes' 1977 book "Image Music Text". It discusses key concepts from Barthes' work such as the distinction between denotation and connotation in interpreting images and texts. It also summarizes Barthes' interest in structural analysis of narratives and comparison of narrative structures to sentence structures in linguistics. The review analyzes Barthes' focus on identifying basic units of analysis for constructing narratives and moving them forward in time through descriptions and causal relationships between events.
This summary provides an overview of Meyer Abrams' book The Mirror and the Lamp:
(1) Abrams explores the shift in literary theory from viewing literature as mirroring reality (mimesis) to viewing the writer's mind as a lamp that illuminates their works (expressive theory), which was a key development in romanticism.
(2) He analyzes four main theories of representation - mimetic, pragmatic, expressive, and objective - to understand how assumptions about the artist, work, audience, and universe have changed over time.
(3) The book provides crucial historical and philosophical context for understanding the development of romanticism in English, French, and German literature and its lasting influence on literary criticism
A Narratological Study And Analysis Of The Concept Of Time In William Faulkn...Claire Webber
This document provides an overview and analysis of the concept of time in William Faulkner's short story "A Rose for Emily". It begins with definitions of key terms like narratology, narrative, and concepts of time. It then discusses Genette's model of analyzing story time versus discourse time. The document is divided into two parts: the first discusses these theoretical concepts, and the second applies Genette's framework to analyze how time is manipulated in Faulkner's story.
This document defines and provides examples of different types of figures of speech used in poetry. It begins by defining a figure of speech as any deviation from common language usage to achieve special meaning or effect. Some common figures of speech are then defined: similes make comparisons using "like" or "as"; metaphors imply comparisons without using "like" or "as"; metonymy associates one thing with another it is closely related to; synecdoche uses a part to represent the whole or vice versa; and personification attributes human characteristics to non-human things. The document emphasizes that figures of speech give language in poetry an original and dense quality.
The document discusses techniques for close reading and critically analyzing literary texts, including defining close reading, outlining the steps to take in close analysis, providing examples of questions to consider and an example critical analysis of a poem. It emphasizes examining specific textual details, developing a thesis, and making an argument through close examination of elements like genre, narrator perspective, language style, imagery and literary devices.
QuestionFor assignment instructions, see Unit Module.Submit th.docxrudybinks
Question
For assignment instructions, see Unit Module.
Submit the discussion as an attached document,
MLA formatting,
file name: 102 Last First DB2 Poetry
Additionally, submit content of document as intitial post to discussions: summary and paragraphs to the textbox in the Discussions: Feb. 12; responses to classmates
MLA FORMATTING
2 PAGES
Regarding the poem choice:
The poem must be in the course text.
If the poem you are considering as the topic of the discussion -- and the literary analysis essay -- is not in the assigned reading, I ask that you discuss your choice with me.
This "discussion" is intended only to ensure that the analysis not be more challenging than necessary.
In response to a question about the poem, "We Wear the Mask" by Paul Dunbar I offered the following discussion:
Consider who the speaker is and who the speaker is speaking of, the "our" and "we" of the poem. Since the author is African American and lived in the late 1800s and into the early 1900s, the voice is typically assumed to be speaking about the African American experience; however, the poem's meaning can be generalized to any group that is marginalized.
Consider the imagery and the type response it evokes. How does the poem appeal to the senses? Rather than thinking in terms of the poem "causing the reader to . . . ," consider that the poem evokes or elicits a type of emotional response; that is, the poem brings that emotion into consciousness rather than "making a reader" respond a certain way.
Consider the mask as a symbol. What is the "literal" mask? What does it represent symbolically?
Consider the mask as an allusion: According to the
Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia
masks were used "in ancient Greek drama [to represent] the character being portrayed by the actor and were constructed to portray a fixed emotion such as grief or rage" ("Mask"). In Greek theatre, there were typically only a few characters, but there was also a chorus that either spoke in unison or were represented by one speaker. The chorus represented the voice of the community as well as serving as a narrator and a transitional element between acts or scenes in the play.
"Mask."
Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed.
(2013): n. p.
Literary Reference Center Plus
. Web. 10 Feb. 2015.
If you have questions about your poem choice, let me know.
A reminder: While you may go to online sites for some general information about the poem you have chosen, you are expected to use that information only as a springboard for ideas. In other words, your choices about discussion and support should be based on your critical reading and the information in the course text. Additionally, use the glossary in the course text for definitions (not general internet searches), and if you need a definition, use an online collegiate-level dictionary (One is recommended in the course syllabus).
If you want to read further, use library databases:
The Literary Reference Center Plus
is a good.
A Poem Is Like A Picture. Creative Writing Through PaintingsTye Rausch
This document discusses using paintings to inspire creative writing in students. It proposes having students analyze paintings and then write poetry responding to the paintings, known as ekphrasis. Ekphrasis involves vividly describing visual art through words. Examples are given of famous poems inspired by specific paintings. The benefits discussed are that paintings and poems create alternate realities where time and space interact, and the writing process can encourage students to explore their own identities and perspectives through blending seen and imagined elements. Specific techniques like regularities, patterns, and ambiguity are presented that teachers can use to scaffold students' exploration of poetic meaning and creative writing responses to paintings.
This document discusses the characteristics of Renaissance literary theory and genres. Some key points:
- Literary genres are grouped based on similarities in style, structure, and devices, though boundaries can be vague as works may cross genres.
- Renaissance commentary emphasized eloquence and using literary texts as examples of good speaking. Epics were favored as they could fulfill moral principles while also inspiring.
- Allegory and the seriousness of content mattered more than rigid definitions of genres. Works like pastoral and lyric could be modes as well as genres.
- Tragedies focused more on being normative and edifying rather than cathartic. Tragicomedies combined traits of tragedy and comedy without full deaths.
In our secular age literary critics tend to deny that literary texts reveal 'truth' in a religious sense even though great authors like Milton and Robert Browning saw themselves as divine messengers. Even poets such as Shelley imbued their works with a spiritual quality in defiance of tendencies to regard poetry as outmoded and alien to progressive and rationalit thought. Perhaps it is time to rise to poetry's defence as Shelley did.
Harold Bloom's book The Western Canon analyzes the books that constitute the Western literary canon. He divides the canon into four sections based on different historical periods: theocratic, aristocratic, democratic, and chaotic. Bloom believes canonicity is determined by a work's ability to be read and re-read over many years, raise universal themes, and demonstrate influence on later works. He uses interpretations of 26 representative writers to demonstrate how texts earn a place in the canon based on their "beauty and strangeness" which resists reductive interpretations. Bloom argues for preserving the aesthetic autonomy of literary works and the importance of the canon for literary education.
This document provides an overview of literary criticism and various literary theories. It discusses how literary criticism involves interpreting specific texts, while literary theory aims to provide criteria for identifying literature and make us aware of our own critical methods. Several literary theories are then surveyed, including classical, historical-biographical, moral-philosophical, romantic, and New Criticism theories. Classical theory examines concepts like mimesis, function, style and catharsis. Historical-biographical theory interprets works in their historical context, while moral-philosophical theory emphasizes teaching morality. Romantic theory, as defined by Wordsworth, values ordinary subject matter and feelings conveyed through imagination. New Criticism views the text as an independent, unified whole
This document provides an overview of literature and its use in language teaching. It begins by outlining the objectives of the presentation, which are to define literature from generic and functional perspectives, describe models for using literature in language teaching, discuss criteria for selecting literary texts, and provide an example evaluation of a grade 5 English textbook. It then introduces literature and provides definitions from various scholars. The main body discusses oral and written literature, their forms and genres. It explains key elements of fiction like setting, characters, plot, conflict, theme, and style. It also defines short stories and novels. The overall document serves to define literature and analyze its components to understand how it can be incorporated into language teaching.
1. The document reviews Jonathan Culler's book "Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction" which provides a concise overview of key concepts and approaches in literary theory.
2. Literary theory examines the concept of "literariness" and how theories of representation relate to theories of reality. It has applications across various academic and professional fields.
3. Culler outlines the major areas, topics, and themes that constitute different approaches to literary theory in an accessible way for readers new to the subject. He examines concepts like structural linguistics, narrative theory, speech-act theory, deconstruction, and theories of subjectivity.
This document provides an overview of New Criticism as a literary theory that emerged in the early 20th century. It discusses how New Criticism rejected the biographical and historical approaches that were dominant at the time, instead advocating for an approach that focuses solely on analyzing the text itself through close reading. The document traces the origins and key figures of New Criticism, such as T.S. Eliot, John Crowe Ransom, and F.R. Leavis. It explains the core tenets of New Criticism, including rejecting authorial intention and reader response in favor of searching for an objective meaning within the text. The document also covers how New Criticism analyzes formal elements through close reading and compares
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More Related Content
Similar to 2005. A Cognitive Rhetoric Of Poetry And Emily Dickinson.
New Criticism was a literary theory that emphasized close reading of texts and considered works of literature as self-contained artifacts rather than as expressions of external biographical or historical contexts. It dominated American literary criticism between 1940-1960. New Critics believed the meaning of a text came from analyzing its formal elements like symbols, metaphors, and literary devices rather than the author's intentions or a reader's subjective response. They advocated an objective interpretation based solely on what was contained within the text itself.
Some scholars in the field of literary criticism and linguistic analysis occasionally refer to 'verbal clues.' This is particularly notable in the field of Robert Browning studies as in the case of a reference to 'pottage' in 'The Pied Piper of Hamelin.' Let us widen the scope of this interpretaion of verbal clues much more wide.
The document provides information on various literary concepts including defining literature, analyzing literature, poetry, figures of speech, imagery, symbols, sound features, and standard poetic forms. It discusses how literature includes works that have stood the test of time and influenced readers. Literary analysis involves careful observation and drawing conclusions to better understand how texts are structured. Poetry emerges from the meaning and arrangement of words on a page. Common figures of speech, imagery, symbols, and sound features are also outlined. Finally, standard poetic forms like sonnets and ballads are described.
This document provides a summary and review of Roland Barthes' 1977 book "Image Music Text". It discusses key concepts from Barthes' work such as the distinction between denotation and connotation in interpreting images and texts. It also summarizes Barthes' interest in structural analysis of narratives and comparison of narrative structures to sentence structures in linguistics. The review analyzes Barthes' focus on identifying basic units of analysis for constructing narratives and moving them forward in time through descriptions and causal relationships between events.
This summary provides an overview of Meyer Abrams' book The Mirror and the Lamp:
(1) Abrams explores the shift in literary theory from viewing literature as mirroring reality (mimesis) to viewing the writer's mind as a lamp that illuminates their works (expressive theory), which was a key development in romanticism.
(2) He analyzes four main theories of representation - mimetic, pragmatic, expressive, and objective - to understand how assumptions about the artist, work, audience, and universe have changed over time.
(3) The book provides crucial historical and philosophical context for understanding the development of romanticism in English, French, and German literature and its lasting influence on literary criticism
A Narratological Study And Analysis Of The Concept Of Time In William Faulkn...Claire Webber
This document provides an overview and analysis of the concept of time in William Faulkner's short story "A Rose for Emily". It begins with definitions of key terms like narratology, narrative, and concepts of time. It then discusses Genette's model of analyzing story time versus discourse time. The document is divided into two parts: the first discusses these theoretical concepts, and the second applies Genette's framework to analyze how time is manipulated in Faulkner's story.
This document defines and provides examples of different types of figures of speech used in poetry. It begins by defining a figure of speech as any deviation from common language usage to achieve special meaning or effect. Some common figures of speech are then defined: similes make comparisons using "like" or "as"; metaphors imply comparisons without using "like" or "as"; metonymy associates one thing with another it is closely related to; synecdoche uses a part to represent the whole or vice versa; and personification attributes human characteristics to non-human things. The document emphasizes that figures of speech give language in poetry an original and dense quality.
The document discusses techniques for close reading and critically analyzing literary texts, including defining close reading, outlining the steps to take in close analysis, providing examples of questions to consider and an example critical analysis of a poem. It emphasizes examining specific textual details, developing a thesis, and making an argument through close examination of elements like genre, narrator perspective, language style, imagery and literary devices.
QuestionFor assignment instructions, see Unit Module.Submit th.docxrudybinks
Question
For assignment instructions, see Unit Module.
Submit the discussion as an attached document,
MLA formatting,
file name: 102 Last First DB2 Poetry
Additionally, submit content of document as intitial post to discussions: summary and paragraphs to the textbox in the Discussions: Feb. 12; responses to classmates
MLA FORMATTING
2 PAGES
Regarding the poem choice:
The poem must be in the course text.
If the poem you are considering as the topic of the discussion -- and the literary analysis essay -- is not in the assigned reading, I ask that you discuss your choice with me.
This "discussion" is intended only to ensure that the analysis not be more challenging than necessary.
In response to a question about the poem, "We Wear the Mask" by Paul Dunbar I offered the following discussion:
Consider who the speaker is and who the speaker is speaking of, the "our" and "we" of the poem. Since the author is African American and lived in the late 1800s and into the early 1900s, the voice is typically assumed to be speaking about the African American experience; however, the poem's meaning can be generalized to any group that is marginalized.
Consider the imagery and the type response it evokes. How does the poem appeal to the senses? Rather than thinking in terms of the poem "causing the reader to . . . ," consider that the poem evokes or elicits a type of emotional response; that is, the poem brings that emotion into consciousness rather than "making a reader" respond a certain way.
Consider the mask as a symbol. What is the "literal" mask? What does it represent symbolically?
Consider the mask as an allusion: According to the
Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia
masks were used "in ancient Greek drama [to represent] the character being portrayed by the actor and were constructed to portray a fixed emotion such as grief or rage" ("Mask"). In Greek theatre, there were typically only a few characters, but there was also a chorus that either spoke in unison or were represented by one speaker. The chorus represented the voice of the community as well as serving as a narrator and a transitional element between acts or scenes in the play.
"Mask."
Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed.
(2013): n. p.
Literary Reference Center Plus
. Web. 10 Feb. 2015.
If you have questions about your poem choice, let me know.
A reminder: While you may go to online sites for some general information about the poem you have chosen, you are expected to use that information only as a springboard for ideas. In other words, your choices about discussion and support should be based on your critical reading and the information in the course text. Additionally, use the glossary in the course text for definitions (not general internet searches), and if you need a definition, use an online collegiate-level dictionary (One is recommended in the course syllabus).
If you want to read further, use library databases:
The Literary Reference Center Plus
is a good.
A Poem Is Like A Picture. Creative Writing Through PaintingsTye Rausch
This document discusses using paintings to inspire creative writing in students. It proposes having students analyze paintings and then write poetry responding to the paintings, known as ekphrasis. Ekphrasis involves vividly describing visual art through words. Examples are given of famous poems inspired by specific paintings. The benefits discussed are that paintings and poems create alternate realities where time and space interact, and the writing process can encourage students to explore their own identities and perspectives through blending seen and imagined elements. Specific techniques like regularities, patterns, and ambiguity are presented that teachers can use to scaffold students' exploration of poetic meaning and creative writing responses to paintings.
This document discusses the characteristics of Renaissance literary theory and genres. Some key points:
- Literary genres are grouped based on similarities in style, structure, and devices, though boundaries can be vague as works may cross genres.
- Renaissance commentary emphasized eloquence and using literary texts as examples of good speaking. Epics were favored as they could fulfill moral principles while also inspiring.
- Allegory and the seriousness of content mattered more than rigid definitions of genres. Works like pastoral and lyric could be modes as well as genres.
- Tragedies focused more on being normative and edifying rather than cathartic. Tragicomedies combined traits of tragedy and comedy without full deaths.
In our secular age literary critics tend to deny that literary texts reveal 'truth' in a religious sense even though great authors like Milton and Robert Browning saw themselves as divine messengers. Even poets such as Shelley imbued their works with a spiritual quality in defiance of tendencies to regard poetry as outmoded and alien to progressive and rationalit thought. Perhaps it is time to rise to poetry's defence as Shelley did.
Harold Bloom's book The Western Canon analyzes the books that constitute the Western literary canon. He divides the canon into four sections based on different historical periods: theocratic, aristocratic, democratic, and chaotic. Bloom believes canonicity is determined by a work's ability to be read and re-read over many years, raise universal themes, and demonstrate influence on later works. He uses interpretations of 26 representative writers to demonstrate how texts earn a place in the canon based on their "beauty and strangeness" which resists reductive interpretations. Bloom argues for preserving the aesthetic autonomy of literary works and the importance of the canon for literary education.
This document provides an overview of literary criticism and various literary theories. It discusses how literary criticism involves interpreting specific texts, while literary theory aims to provide criteria for identifying literature and make us aware of our own critical methods. Several literary theories are then surveyed, including classical, historical-biographical, moral-philosophical, romantic, and New Criticism theories. Classical theory examines concepts like mimesis, function, style and catharsis. Historical-biographical theory interprets works in their historical context, while moral-philosophical theory emphasizes teaching morality. Romantic theory, as defined by Wordsworth, values ordinary subject matter and feelings conveyed through imagination. New Criticism views the text as an independent, unified whole
This document provides an overview of literature and its use in language teaching. It begins by outlining the objectives of the presentation, which are to define literature from generic and functional perspectives, describe models for using literature in language teaching, discuss criteria for selecting literary texts, and provide an example evaluation of a grade 5 English textbook. It then introduces literature and provides definitions from various scholars. The main body discusses oral and written literature, their forms and genres. It explains key elements of fiction like setting, characters, plot, conflict, theme, and style. It also defines short stories and novels. The overall document serves to define literature and analyze its components to understand how it can be incorporated into language teaching.
1. The document reviews Jonathan Culler's book "Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction" which provides a concise overview of key concepts and approaches in literary theory.
2. Literary theory examines the concept of "literariness" and how theories of representation relate to theories of reality. It has applications across various academic and professional fields.
3. Culler outlines the major areas, topics, and themes that constitute different approaches to literary theory in an accessible way for readers new to the subject. He examines concepts like structural linguistics, narrative theory, speech-act theory, deconstruction, and theories of subjectivity.
This document provides an overview of New Criticism as a literary theory that emerged in the early 20th century. It discusses how New Criticism rejected the biographical and historical approaches that were dominant at the time, instead advocating for an approach that focuses solely on analyzing the text itself through close reading. The document traces the origins and key figures of New Criticism, such as T.S. Eliot, John Crowe Ransom, and F.R. Leavis. It explains the core tenets of New Criticism, including rejecting authorial intention and reader response in favor of searching for an objective meaning within the text. The document also covers how New Criticism analyzes formal elements through close reading and compares
Defining Literature Essay
literature Essay examples
Literature in Life Essay
The Study of Literature Essay
18th Century Literature Essay
Essay on Why Read Literature?
What Is Literature? Essay
What Is Literature Essay
Multicultural Literature Essay
Similar to 2005. A Cognitive Rhetoric Of Poetry And Emily Dickinson. (18)
FREEBIE GroundhogS Day Writing Paper By Leah FullMary Calkins
The document provides instructions for creating an account and submitting a paper writing request to the website HelpWriting.net. It outlines a 5-step process: 1) Create an account with an email and password. 2) Complete a form with paper details, sources, and deadline. 3) Review writer bids and qualifications and select a writer. 4) Review the completed paper and authorize payment if satisfied. 5) Request revisions until fully satisfied, with a refund option for plagiarism. The document promotes HelpWriting.net's writing services and guarantees of original, high-quality content.
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2. Unfortunately, separating rhetoric from poetics ignores the fact that ‘from Plato
to Paul de Man, rhetoric and poetics have been intertwined’ (Preminger, 1986:
230) and the fact that ‘the two arts remain all but inextricable’ (Brogan, 1994:
257) given rhetoric’s ‘well nigh inseparable link with poetics’ (Verdonk, 1999:
294).
Isolating rhetoric from poetics makes about as much sense as isolating
literature from rhetoric. After all, literature is a form of rhetoric, as the term
‘argument’ (Cuddon, 1991: 60) implies. Literary critics often use argument, for
example, to refer to what a poem would persuade us to imagine, think, or
believe. In doing so, the assumption that literature is rhetoric becomes explicit
rather than implicit. If literature is rhetoric, and if figurative language is the
rhetoric of poetry, then a rhetoric grounded in cognitive linguistic theories of
figurative language might be termed a cognitive rhetoric of poetry. While the
connections between rhetoric and cognition motivated scholars like Sperber
(1975) to coin the term ‘cognitive rhetoric’, the term is perhaps more widely
understood as the research program Turner proposed in his book, Reading Minds
(1991). From there, ‘cognitive rhetoric’ found its way into handbooks, such as
the seventh edition of the Glossary of Literary Terms (Abrams, 1999: 269), but
this does not mean the term is clearly understood. While a phrase like ‘cognitive
rhetoricians’ (Carroll, 1999: 159; Turner, 2002: 9) might suggest a large group of
scholars are working overtly within this area, not everyone appreciates the term.
Stockwell, for instance, calls cognitive rhetoric an ‘ugly’ and ‘repulsive’ term yet
simultaneously admits that terms like ‘cognitive hermeneutics’ or ‘cognitive
rhetoric’ may be ‘more right’ as an ‘alternative’ to ‘cognitive poetics’ or
‘cognitive stylistics’ (Stockwell, 2004). For his part, Hall (2003: 353) refers to
‘cognitive poetics / stylistics / rhetoric’ in a way that suggests these terms might
simply be interchangeable. To be clear, Sperber saw cognitive rhetoric as a first
step towards the development of what would become known as Relevance
Theory (Sperber and Wilson, 1986) in pragmatics. But Turner, whose definition I
adhere to here, took cognitive rhetoric to refer to ‘case studies explaining
individual works and elucidating in the process three levels on which cognitive
studies form the ground of criticism’ (Turner, 1991: 239). Those levels were the
level of ‘local phrasing’, the level of the ‘whole literary work’, and ‘the level at
which we conceive of literature generally’ (1991: 240–5).
In this sense, cognitive rhetoric can be useful to examine figures and texts in
particular, and literature in general. That is why, if critics think of literature as
rhetoric, cognitive rhetoric can be thought of as a means of studying literature,
which classical rhetoricians classified as epideictic rhetoric. Culler, for his part,
would probably agree with Turner’s proposals because, as Culler has stated,
‘Poetry is related to rhetoric: it is language that makes abundant use of figures of
speech and language that aims to be powerfully persuasive’ (1997: 71). Culler
refrains from saying ‘poetry is rhetoric’, but he nevertheless defines poetry in
terms of rhetoric, figurative language, and persuasion. Therefore, it seems fitting
to study the rhetoric of poetry by studying first and foremost the persuasive and
Language and Literature 2005 14(3)
280 CRAIG HAMILTON
3. figurative language of poetry, especially since early modern rhetorical
stylisticians rarely ‘decoupled’ figures ‘from persuasive language’ (Fahnestock,
2005). Today, thanks to the rise of cognitive linguistics, a rhetoric of poetry can
thus be thought of as a cognitive rhetoric of poetry, especially if we agree that
‘Meanings are [. . .] in people’s minds, not in words on the page’ (Lakoff and
Turner, 1989: 109).
As Auden famously put it in The Sea and the Mirror, ‘Everything, in short,
suggests Mind’. Granted, it might seem tautological to claim that the study of
literature, language, poetics, rhetoric, and stylistics is really the study of the mind
for it then becomes difficult to say what the study of the mind is not. While this
article is not the place to take up that question, I simply want to suggest that
cognitive rhetoric is an apt label for examining those mental processes for the
achievement of meaning that are better known as analogy, simile, and metaphor.
As Collins (1991) argued, it is impossible to do poetics without doing
hermeneutics because the generalizations of poetics can only be made through
references to specific texts. The same is true of cognitive rhetoric, which is why,
for the remainder of this article, I want to focus on simile, metaphor and analogy
in three poems by Dickinson – F372, F598 and F1381, as numbered in the
Franklin edition (Dickinson, 1999).
As to why my article is limited to Dickinson, I can offer three explanations.
First, as Stonum, a Dickinson scholar, has written, ‘It is a common claim in
contemporary criticism that figurality is crucial to literary language and that it is
also the feature which most fully resists codification and certainty’ (1990: 51).
Although I agree that ‘figurality is crucial to literary language’, I hope to
demonstrate in this article that figures do not always resist critical codification
because arriving at a sound understanding of the way they work is possible
within that discursive genre known as literary criticism. Second, in writing about
Dickinson, Anderson states: ‘Poetic language in mid-nineteenth century America
had been reduced to a relatively flat and nerveless state, but he furnished her
[Dickinson] with the clues for its [poetic language’s] resurrection’ (Anderson,
1963: 145). If Anderson is right, then literary history testifies to the importance
of Dickinson’s wonderful language and the value of studying it closely. Third,
because ‘Dickinson’s poems are brief’ (West, 1993: 31) many stylistic devices,
including ‘compression and ellipsis’ (Richmond, 1989: 41) and deletions of
nouns and verbs (Ross, 2004), are used in a sophisticated manner within that
rather small space known as a Dickinson lyric poem. This may be why some
refer to Dickinson’s work as ‘iridescent, puzzling, explosive’ (Tursi, 1998), an
opinion that makes it all the more fitting to turn to Dickinson’s poems for a
discussion of the rhetorical function of poetic figures. To summarize, my choice
of Dickinson is justifiable because ‘metaphor assumes vital meaning’ in her
poems (Richmond, 1989: 37) and because her metaphors ‘jar one into an
original, lively experience with [. . .] words, ideas, and situations’ (Richmond,
1989: 39).
Language and Literature 2005 14(3)
A COGNITIVE RHETORIC OF POETRY 281
4. 2 The Poems1
Poem F372 (Dickinson, 1999: 170)
After great pain, a formal feeling comes –
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs –
The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He, that bore’,
And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before’?
The Feet, mechanical, go round –
A Wooden way
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought –
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone –
This is the Hour of Lead –
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –
First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –
Poem F598 (Dickinson, 1999: 269)
The Brain – is wider than the Sky –
For – put them side by side –
The one the other will contain
With ease – and You – beside –
The Brain is deeper than the sea –
For – hold them – Blue to Blue –
The one the other will absorb –
As Sponges – Buckets – do –
The Brain is just the weight of God –
For – Heft them – Pound for Pound –
And they will differ – if they do –
As Syllable from Sound –
Poem F1381 (Dickinson, 1999: 529)
The Heart is the Capital of the Mind
The Mind is a single State –
The Heart and the Mind together make
A single Continent –
One – is the Population –
Numerous enough –
This ecstatic Nation
Seek – it is Yourself.2
Language and Literature 2005 14(3)
282 CRAIG HAMILTON
5. 3 ‘After great pain, a formal feeling comes’ (Poem F372)
My interest in Dickinson’s figurative language stems in part from my
dissatisfaction with the way some scholars discuss her use of it. For example,
Richmond finds that metaphor for Dickinson ‘does not merely compare two
objects of the real world, as in the traditional poetic performance of Milton or
Dryden or Keats; rather, the metaphor articulates the feelings she has experienced
in pure perception’ (1989: 34). Richmond assumes that Dickinson’s metaphors
are so unique that they have little in common with the metaphors of other great
poets, especially since they are rooted in ‘pure perception’. While I do not know
what ‘pure perception’ is, a cognitive linguist familiar with conceptual metaphor
theory could probably find that the metaphors of Milton, Dryden, Keats, and
Dickinson have more in common than someone like Richmond thinks. To be fair,
Richmond is insightful when he says that Dickinson’s metaphors ‘constitute the
reality of a poem by being the poem, rather than embellished comparisons that
are interpolated into the poem’ (Richmond, 1989: 35), and this insight seems an
appropriate place to begin.
Eminent Dickinson critics like Cameron spread confusion where clarity is
called for in discussing Dickinson’s use of figurative language. For example, in
reference to ‘Longing is like the Seed / That wrestles in the Ground’ (F1298),
Cameron writes:
Similes recognize that we fail at direct names because we fail at perfect
comprehension, and that certain experiences evade mastery and hence
definition – the best we can do is approximate or approach them; a simile is
an acknowledgment of that failure and contains within it the pain of imperfect
rendering. (1979: 35)
Here Cameron argues that metaphors are more direct than similes and,
conversely, that similes are less direct than metaphors. Cameron would thus say
that ‘Longing is like the Seed’ is less direct than ‘Longing is the Seed’. That is
fine as far as it goes, but Cameron’s account of why similes seem less direct than
metaphors does not go very far. To suggest somehow that similes are signs of
‘imperfect’ ‘comprehension’, or of a ‘failure’ in comprehension, is to mystify
similes unnecessarily, devalue the use of figurative language, and underestimate
the mind’s methods of meaning-making. Cameron’s account also fails to consider
in depth why similes and metaphors seem different in their directness. As poem
F372 reveals, similes are a means of comprehension rather than signs of a failure
to comprehend. Dickinson’s similes also point to the rhetorical nature of the
poem. Dickinson probably persuades most of her readers to believe that grief is a
devastating emotion. Pathos results from that argument, but the logos of that
argument is rooted in a comparison: to feel grief in mourning the death of some-
one else is similar to the pain one would feel in freezing to death oneself.
To see exactly how that argument is constructed and conveyed, however, the
Language and Literature 2005 14(3)
A COGNITIVE RHETORIC OF POETRY 283
6. poem’s figurative language needs to be discussed in depth. There are at least four
things readers might notice when re-reading the poem. First, there are
Dickinson’s metaphors. Throughout the poem Dickinson personifies various parts
of the body. She tells us ‘The Nerves sit’, the ‘Heart questions’, and the ‘Feet
[. . .] go round’. Body parts that sit, question, and walk seem to do on their own
what an entire individual could do. Dickinson’s choice to focus on the parts
rather than on the whole helps readers assign agency to the body parts rather than
to the person as a whole. The result is a representation of a passive persona to
whom things happen rather than an active persona who makes things happen.
Also, the ‘formal feeling comes’ to the persona as if of its own volition, and this
too personifies an emotion whose cause is apparently not to be located within the
persona here. As Dickinson scholars have noted, in a poem allegedly about ‘the
mind’s self-protective abandonment of consciousness’ (Eberwein, 1985: 141), the
‘formal feeling’ indicates ‘an abdication of presence’ (Cameron, 1979: 168). This
is similar to what Freeman, another Dickinson scholar, has discovered in
Dickinson’s poems in general: they often suggest a ‘sense of absence’ while a
‘semantics of silence’ is implied by her ubiquitous use of dashes (Freeman, 1996:
203).
Second, there are Dickinson’s similes. Her first simile, ‘The Nerves sit
ceremonious, like Tombs’, evokes a stillness of the nerves that owes little to an
actual lack of empathy on the part of the persona. Her second simile, ‘A Quartz
contentment, like a stone –’, seems strained to Cameron (1979: 15), apparently
because ‘quartz is a stone’. However, the simile’s target is not ‘Quartz’ but
‘contentment’. While ‘Quartz’ belongs to the category of stones, here it functions
as an adjective modifying an emotion, ‘contentment’. One reason why ‘Quartz’
can be used to depict ‘contentment’ is that emotions and stones do not belong to
the same conceptual categories (more on this simile later). Finally, the third
simile compares the persona’s future remembrance of this specific feeling of
grief to the sequential recollection that ‘Freezing persons’ may have of ‘the
Snow’: ‘First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –’. One way to para-
phrase this last simile is as follows: ‘This experience of grief is like death by
freezing: there is the chill, then the stupor as the body becomes numbed, and the
last state in which the body finally gives up the fight against the cold, and relaxes
and dies’ (Brooks and Warren, 1972 [1938]: 71). Another way to interpret what
occurs here is to say that the poem’s ‘concluding simile departs from the present
as if in analogy there were some further, final escape’ (Cameron, 1979: 168).
Rhetoric textbooks often define simile as an explicit comparison and metaphor
as an implicit comparison (Lanham, 1991: 140), and Dickinson explicitly
compares how the persona experiences grief to how the victims of death by
freezing feel. But if the presence of the last simile of the poem signifies ‘some
further, final escape’, then what Cameron has done is take the simile as
signifying something implicit rather than something explicit. Understanding the
simile, and interpreting it as a referring to something else (‘final escape’), are
two distinct processes. To be fair to Cameron, some of the confusion over similes
Language and Literature 2005 14(3)
284 CRAIG HAMILTON
7. can be traced back to Aristotle, who called similes ‘metaphors, differing in the
form of expression’ (Aristotle, 1991: 229). Intuitively, metaphors (A is B) seem
stronger than similes (A is like B) in that they imply more rigid categorizations
(Glucksberg and McGlone, 1999). Furthermore, as Glucksberg and Keysar argue
(1993: 406), ‘Similes can always be intensified by putting them in metaphor
form, whereas the reverse does not hold’. That may be why we feel a difference
between ‘nerves are tombs sitting ceremoniously’ and ‘nerves sit ceremoniously
like tombs’. But according to Israel et al. (2003: 3) there is another way to
explain such differences: ‘A simile is a figurative comparison that reflects
similarities between conventionally unrelated items or domains rather than
creating similarities, which is what metaphor can do.’ If true, then the similes
‘like Tombs’, ‘like a stone’, and ‘As Freezing persons’ evoke concrete source
domains that ‘reflect similarities’ with more abstract target domains. Now, if
people had to know everything about the visual system’s working in order to see,
then only the neuroscientists of vision would be able to see. Readers do not need
to know how similes work in order to understand them, but critics might want to
think about how similes work before interpreting them and then claiming what
they mean. Therefore, while it is possible to interpret (as Cameron does) the
presence and use of the last simile in Dickinson’s poem as representing ‘some
further, final escape’, it is important to see that comprehending the simile and
making this claim are two different processes, and that taking the former process
for granted may have consequences for the latter.
Third, it can be argued that the words ‘formal’, ‘ceremonious’, ‘Tombs’, ‘He’,
and ‘stone’ reveal the presence of a funeral schema. My claim that grief is the
emotion Dickinson portrays is based on prototypically associating grief with
funerals. A refusal to demonstrate grief at a funeral is taken as a sign of abnormal
behavior (Mersault’s behavior at his mother’s funeral in Camus’ The Stranger is
but one literary example of this kind of behavior). With that in mind, the question
raised by Brooks and Warren (1972 [1938]: 71) – ‘why does the poet use
“quartz”’? – can be answered directly. Psycholinguistic research has shown that
subjects tend to prefer concrete rather than abstract source domains when
processing figurative language (Shen, 1997: 45).3 Comparisons based on abstract
source concepts tend to be ‘anomalous’ or ‘difficult to understand’ (Shen, 1997:
45). Dickinson refers to heavy, concrete, and hard objects in order to convey
grief to us, and this is what helps make the figures comprehensible. For example,
if the opposite of Quartz contentment is feather contentment, then it is easy to
see what sort of ‘contentment’ ‘Quartz contentment’ is. In addition, DIFFICULT IS
HEAVY and DIFFICULTIES ARE BURDENS (Grady, 1999: 80, 96) are two closely
related metaphors that explain the motivations behind Dickinson’s choice. As
Grady (1999: 96) has found, ‘weight and difficulty are two concepts linked’ in
many different languages via the DIFFICULT IS HEAVY and DIFFICULTIES ARE
BURDENS metaphors. To say that something is difficult, we may therefore say that
it is heavy (e.g. ‘I have a heavy task ahead of me this weekend’). Tombs, stones,
quartz, and lead are heavy; when coupled with an emotion, they suggest a
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A COGNITIVE RHETORIC OF POETRY 285
8. difficult emotion that is a heavy emotion. Of course, Dickinson does not
explicitly say ‘Grief is a very difficult emotion to experience and an almost
impossible emotion to bear’, but that is one way to summarize her argument and
explain her choice of words like ‘Quartz’.
Fourth, Dickinson’s last stanza evokes two basic metaphors: DEATH IS WINTER
and LIFE IS A PRECIOUS POSSESSION (Lakoff and Turner, 1989: 18, 30). If life is
warmth and death is cold, then Dickinson’s choice of words like ‘Freezing’,
‘Snow’, and ‘Chill’ are associated with the domain of death. Also, if life is
something that we may hang on to, cling to, or let go of, then ‘letting go’ in the
poem’s last line metaphorically refers to dying. Granted, this may seem obvious,
but it is worth realizing what general conceptual metaphors Dickinson relies on
specifically in order to make her point. To comprehend what her argument is and
how that argument works, it is thus useful to see how her specific linguistic
metaphors relate to more general conceptual metaphors. Clearly, Dickinson’s
metaphors reveal that she fully understands a concept such as PASSIONATE IS HOT;
DISPASSIONATE IS COLD (Lakoff and Turner, 1989: 190). To call someone ‘hot’ or
‘cold’ is to say very different things about them, and Dickinson understood that.
For example, in a letter to her sister-in-law, Susan Huntington Dickinson, the
poet once wrote: ‘my heart beats so fast [. . .] my darling, so near I seem to you,
that I disdain this pen, and wait for a warmer language’ (quoted in Koski, 1996:
29). To interpret ‘warmer’ as synonymous with ‘less affectionate’ in that last
sentence is to fundamentally misunderstand Dickinson’s words. However, the
widespread (albeit unconscious) knowledge that many people have of PASSION IS
HOT; DISPASSIONATE IS COLD helps limit such misunderstandings.
The four things I have just discussed are not all that can be said about this
poem, of course. I did not analyze the poem’s metrical pattern, its rhyme scheme,
its textual history, its biographical context, and its potential intertextual links.
One might also note, as Freeman does (1996: 194), that a hallmark of
Dickinson’s style is her deletion of several components from the question in the
first stanza: ‘The stiff Heart questions “was it He, that bore, [the pain] / And [did
he bear it] “Yesterday, or [did he bear it] Centuries before?”’. I agree that such
deletions ‘turn the reader into an active participant who must provide that which
is left unsaid’ (Freeman, 1996: 194), but I did not discuss these deletions. Nor did
I discuss the conditional statement, ‘Remembered, if outlived’, although just as
the persona seems absent-minded because of the grief she feels, so too is ‘the
agent of the remembering and the outliving [. . .] also missing’ (Freeman, 1996:
203). I could continue to list the things I have excluded from my discussion here
in order to demonstrate that cognitive rhetoric does not hold all the answers to
every possible question that could be put to the poem,4 but my decision to focus
on the poem’s figurative language is based on my opinion that a discussion of the
poem’s figures can help explain how readers realize the poem’s argument. In
other words, readers studying the poem might not notice the poem’s dominant
metrical pattern and yet still understand Dickinson’s argument about grief based
on their comprehension of Dickinson’s figurative language. Because the same
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286 CRAIG HAMILTON
9. thing could be said about Dickinson’s analogies in both ‘The Brain – is wider
than the Sky’ and ‘The Heart is the Capital of the Mind’, I now wish to discuss
those two poems.
4 ‘The Brain – is wider than the Sky’ (F598)
In poem F598, ‘The Brain – is wider than the Sky’, Dickinson uses analogies to
define the mind in a not altogether straightforward manner. She avoids saying
directly what the ‘brain’ is; instead, she says what its properties are by
contrasting the brain with the sky, the sea, and God’s weight. Each stanza in the
poem begins with a debatable proposition, and then supports that proposition
with a qualifying clause that begins with ‘for’. The function of the proposition is
to introduce the first two items from the analogy; a function of the qualification
that supports the proposition is to introduce the last two items from the analogy.
In short, the poem’s three analogies follow this pattern. Although Dickinson’s
analogies are novel, they offer evidence for Turner’s claim that ‘[a]nalogies are
not structured between very like concepts’ and ‘analogies do not exist between
very like concepts’ (1991: 135). As Turner states:
To recognize a statement as an analogy is to recognize that it is in some way
putting pressure on our category structures. Therefore, the act of recognizing
analogy depends upon the details of our category structures. Principles of
recognizing a statement as an analogy are influenced by and reflect principles
of categorization. (1991: 122)
With respect to Dickinson, we might ask: how do her analogies put pressure
on our categories? At first glance, the analogy in stanza one is nonsense. A sky
that envelops a globe that is almost 23,000 miles in circumference is far ‘wider
than’ a brain that may be but inches in circumference and which is itself housed
within a small human skull. But if ‘Brain’ can mean ‘consciousness’ or ‘the seat
of the self’ (Gelpi, 1965: 99), then it need not be taken literally as the object
between your ears. So what drives the construction of the analogy is the word
‘contain’, which does put our categories under pressure. If consciousness is
‘wider than the Sky / For’ it can ‘contain’ not only the sky but also the poem’s
addressee, then the analogy entails categorizing the brain as a container and
thereby locating concepts like the sky within it when we have ‘put them side by
side’.5
The analogy in the second stanza can be spelled out as follows: just as a
sponge can retain water, so too can the brain ‘absorb’ the sea’s depth and its
color. The juxtaposition of these four items (sponge / water / brain / sea) is
provoked by Dickinson’s metonymic command to ‘hold them – Blue to Blue –’.
For Stonum, in this analogy ‘the mind, the comprehending agent, is larger than
the comprehended object’ (1990: 101). What Stonum’s use of the word ‘larger’
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A COGNITIVE RHETORIC OF POETRY 287
10. suggests is that Dickinson is arguing that the brain (Stonum would call it the
mind, Gelpi would call it consciousness or the seat of the self) is ‘more
significant’ than the sea. But how is this conclusion possible? One of our most
fundamental conceptual metaphors is IMPORTANT IS BIG (Lakoff and Turner, 1989:
206–7), which Grady (1999: 80) redefined as SIGNIFICANT IS LARGE. This is a
universal albeit conventional primary metaphor since in many unrelated
languages around the world – such as Zulu, Hawaiian, Turkish, Malay, and
Russian (Grady, 1999: 80) – people attribute importance to size, as in ‘Tomorrow
is a big day for me’. This attribution is one Dickinson counts on readers to make
as she argues for the brain’s significance and importance. Her analogies in
stanzas one and two, in other words, are means for arguing that the brain is
significant because it can ‘contain’ the sky and ‘absorb’ the sea. Again, as was
the case with ‘contain’ earlier, here the verb ‘absorb’ is also figurative, for a brain
cannot literally ‘absorb’ a sea. But Dickinson tells us it can because the brain is
analogous to a sponge in a bucket full of water, a sponge that can retain a volume
that is greater than its own. If this poem is ‘an examination of mental powers’
(Stonum, 1990: 100), that examination is embodied by the analogies readers
construct in order to better understand the mind and/or brain.
In the last stanza, the belief that the mind is infinite reappears when Dickinson
says it ‘is just the weight of God’. However, a sort of caveat is inserted into the
argument when she suggests that the only difference in weight between the mind
and God is the same difference in weight that exists between ‘Syllable’ and
‘Sound’. As was the case in the previous stanza, where four elements for the
analogy were present (brain / sponge / sea / water in bucket), four elements are
also present here (brain’s weight / God’s weight / syllable / sound). A conditional
statement (‘if they do’) introduces the caveat. As Sweetser has argued, the reason
why such pleonastic uses of ‘if’ are pragmatically acceptable in everyday
discourse is that ‘it is often useful to display the train of reasoning leading to the
conclusion expressed’ (1990: 131). One of the functions of ‘if’, however, is ‘to
argue from an already shared belief of speaker and hearer to a not-yet-shared
belief’ (Sweetser, 1990: 129), which suggests that Dickinson uses the phrase ‘if
they do’ in a way that is more conditional than counterfactual. This is due to the
fact that once readers agree that the first two items in the analogy (the brain’s
weight and God’s weight) are equivalent, then the belief that syllable could
‘differ’ from sound (the last two items in the analogy) can become a belief shared
by both persona and addressee, a belief which may help to seal the poem’s
argument, as it were.
5 ‘The Heart is the Capital of the Mind’ (F1381)
Dickinson once again turns to analogy in Poem F1381, ‘The Heart is the Capital
of the Mind’, this time in an argument against mind–body dualism. Grammati-
cally, the form of the poem’s title metaphor can be understood as follows: Noun
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288 CRAIG HAMILTON
11. Phrase be Noun Phrase of Noun Phrase. These patterns are ‘XYZ metaphors’ and
their semantics can be schematized as follows: ‘X is the Y of Z’ (Turner, 1991:
201). In the first line of Dickinson’s poem, therefore, the following pattern is
recognizable:
● Phrase: ‘The Heart is the Capital of the Mind’
● Syntax: NP be NP of NP
● Semantics: X is the Y of Z
● Analogy: X is to Z as Y is to W.
Dickinson’s opening line asks readers to vividly connect the body and the mind
via analogical mappings. It prompts readers to understand ‘the Heart’ as ‘the
Capital of the Mind’ by leading them to grasp certain cross-domain relationships:
Source: Political Entity Target: Human Being
Capital (Y) Heart (X)
Country (W) Mind (Z)
Dickinson explicitly provides elements X, Y, and Z, but W is implicitly evoked.
In order to understand the relationship between the heart (X) and the mind (Z),
readers must understand analogically the relationship a capital (Y) has to an
entity such as a country (W). Doing so leads readers to see that what the heart
(X) is to the mind (Z) a capital (Y) is to a country (W). Because W is implicit
rather than explicit, readers implicitly supply it to complete the pattern and
process the figurative expression. This may be why Stonum has said that
Dickinson’s poetry is ‘designed more to stimulate responses in the reader’, which
‘encourages a reader’s coming into his own’ (1990: 90).
Exactly how readers ‘come into their own’ with lines like ‘The Heart is
the Capital of the Mind’ can be accounted for by conceptual blending theory
(Fauconnier and Turner, 2002). Dickinson’s line provokes an analogy
(X:Z :: Y:W), a pattern evoked by elements X, Y, and Z but completed only
when readers actively supply element W as they read. What makes such an
analogy so creative, of course, is that when Y and Z are blended to result in the
concept of ‘the capital of the mind’, this becomes a memorable means for
defining the heart. In fact, ideas like these lead Fauconnier and Turner (2002: 14)
to state ‘that analogy, as a cognitive operation, [is] intricate, powerful, and
fundamental’ and that analogy ‘has traditionally been viewed as a powerful
engine of discovery’. Within the context of Dickinson’s poem, the opening
analogy is just such an example of a ‘discovery’ that is ‘powerful’.
Just as we saw with Dickinson’s principled choice of words in ‘After great
pain, a formal feeling comes’, metaphoric cohesion is again visible in this poem
when Dickinson situates ‘Heart’, ‘Mind’, ‘Continent’, and ‘Yourself’ within the
target input, and ‘Capital’, ‘State’, ‘Population’, and ‘Nation’ within the source
input. The relationship between these eight terms in the two inputs helps create
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A COGNITIVE RHETORIC OF POETRY 289
12. the cohesion we sense, although two of the eight terms (continent and state)
might seem out of place. ‘State’ can refer to different things, including a mood or
attitude, but it also refers to a political entity which coheres with the other items
in the source input. After all, in ‘The Mind is a single State’, line two of the
poem, the target is mind rather than state. As for ‘Continent’, it is more a
geographical entity than a political one since of the world’s seven continents only
Australia contains a single nation-state within it. To return to metaphoric
cohesion in Dickinson’s poem, her choice of words allows her poem to answer a
series of important questions. What is the mind? A ‘single State’. What is the
heart? The ‘Capital of the Mind’. What do the heart and mind make when
combined? A ‘single Continent’. If the mind and body are one continent, then
what is that continent’s ‘Population’? ‘One’ person who is ‘Numerous enough’.
What is a population of one? An ‘ecstatic Nation’ that you should ‘Seek’. Why?
It is ‘Yourself’.
These questions and their answers may lend a dialogic structure to the poem.
However, they may also seem but a simplistic paraphrase of the poem, a poem
which itself is a variation on the ‘Know thyself’ motto of Socrates. Nevertheless,
the questions reveal how Dickinson continually defines and redefines her terms.
The heart is defined, the mind is defined, and then what the heart and mind
‘together make’ is defined (a ‘single Continent’). In the last stanza, ‘Continent’
then undergoes redefinition and becomes ‘Yourself’. That returns the reader back
to the beginning. What is ‘Yourself’? Your mind and body combined in a single
entity, according to Dickinson, an entity you have to search for. Clearly, what
Cameron calls ‘Dickinson’s Poems of Definition’ (1979: 26–55) includes poem
F1381. However, we also have an example here of what Lakoff (1996: 91) has
called the ‘Metaphor System for Conceptualizing the Self’, whereby the ‘self’ is
thought of as an object that can be lost, found, or looked for. There are also
possible connections with ‘Yourself’ to mental space theory given a rule that
Freeman sees operating in many of Dickinson’s poems: ‘Whenever a subject
referent in one (originating) space projects a mental space (target) via a trigger or
space-builder, its pronoun counterpart in the target space will take the
corresponding -self anaphor form’ (Freeman, 1997: 14). When the imperative
‘Seek’ is used in line 8, and a second-person addressee (You) is entailed by the
imperative, then the choice to use ‘Yourself’ in that line is entirely understandable.
Again, this is something I have not fully discussed because of my focus on
Dickinson’s figures and the contribution they make to the poem’s argument.
Cognitive rhetoric, therefore, does not produce exhaustive interpretations of
works.
6 Conclusion
At this point, skeptics might raise several objections to what I have said in this
article. First, there is my choice of the Franklin edition. By making that choice, I
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290 CRAIG HAMILTON
13. realize I am favoring an imperfect typeset edition of Dickinson’s poems over the
handwritten manuscript versions of the poems that can be found in the fascicles.
That is, I am privileging ‘linguistic codes’ over ‘bibliographic codes’ (McGann,
1991: 56) in a way that, in all honesty, most critics do. The absence of a single
authoritative edition of the poems that all Dickinson scholars will accept as the
accurate public record of her work means critics can either use this as an excuse
to ignore Dickinson’s poetry or make the best of an imperfect situation and
analyze her poetry.
Second, my assumptions about what ‘readers’ do as they read Dickinson’s
poems have not been empirically validated for the purposes specific to this
article. While Smith and Hart have proposed that Susan Huntington Dickinson,
Emily Dickinson’s sister-in-law, was the poet’s ‘primary reader’, that could be ‘a
stretch considering Dickinson’s rich correspondence with intellectuals like
Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Samuel Bowles’ (Tursi, 1998), men to whom
Dickinson also sent poems. Additionally, Dickinson offered poem F1368 (‘Opon
a lilac sea’) to Helen Hunt Jackson for her wedding, which is perhaps another
example of a poem Dickinson addressed to a specific reader (Freeman, 1996:
199). Information like this may account for the ‘the tangible immediacy’ (West,
1993: 34) of some of Dickinson’s poems, especially given that the closer the
relationship between participants in a discourse, the more implicit the speaker’s
discourse becomes (Freeman, 1996: 192), and yet, until my assumptions are
falsified, I find it reasonable to believe that the cognitive processes of simile,
metaphor, and analogy that I have outlined here occur with equal regularity
within the minds of most of Dickinson’s readers.
Third, my belief that a rhetoric of poetry is possible may seem misguided to
those who would make hard and fast distinctions between rhetoric and poetics.
Rhetorical criticism for many years appeared to be merely an exercise in labeling
or identifying the rhetorical figures the critic found in the text. But how many
readers, for example, really recognize chiasmus or antimetabole when they see
it? Moreover, is that recognition vital to comprehension, or is it not? Or, put
another way, how does identification relate to interpretation and explanation?
While this article has not addressed empirical questions like these, I think it safe
to say that figure identification is neither interpretation nor explanation. That
said, cognitive rhetoricians might study the relations between identification,
explanation, and interpretation in order to see if cognitive rhetoric has an answer
to this question.
Fourth, cognitive rhetoric may help critics answer some questions about
Dickinson’s poems in particular, and poetry in general, but I want to make it
clear that it will never have all the answers to all the questions critics might put
to a given text. For example, a critic might want to interpret poem F1381, ‘The
Heart is the Capital of the Mind’, along historical or political lines. This critic
would note that the poem was written around 1875 in the context of post-Civil
War America. In this context, words like ‘Capital’ and ‘Nation’ could seem
important to this critic because the mind–body unification suggested by the poem
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A COGNITIVE RHETORIC OF POETRY 291
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Address
Craig Hamilton, Humanities Program, 185 H.I.B., University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA
[email: cahamilt@uci.edu]
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