Cognitive poetics is a new way of thinking about literature, involving the application of cognitive linguistics and psychology to literary texts. This student-friendly book provides a set of case studies to help students understand the theory and master the practice of cognitive poetics in analysis.
In each chapter, contributors present a practical application of the methods and techniques of cognitive poetics, to a range of texts, from Wilfred Owen, to Roald Dahl. This book is critical reading for students on courses in cognitive poetics, stylistics and literary linguistics.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203417739

Cognitive poetics is a new way of thinking about literature, involving the application of cognitive linguistics and psychology to literary texts. This student-friendly book provides a set of case studies to help students understand the theory and master the practice of cognitive poetics in analysis.
In each chapter, contributors present a practical application of the methods and techniques of cognitive poetics, to a range of texts, from Wilfred Owen, to Roald Dahl. This book is critical reading for students on courses in cognitive poetics, stylistics and literary linguistics.

Poetry in the Mind is the first book-length cognitive analysis focused entirely on 21st century poetic texts and their conceptual effects. Addressing central poetic notions or features of poetic style from an innovative cognitive perspective, the book sheds new light on established ideas about poetic creativity and language. It acts as a showcase both for cutting-edge cognitive research and for the linguistic creativity of renowned poets such as Simon Armitage, Jo Bell, John Burnside, Sinead Morrissey, Alice Oswald, and Kate Tempest.

Joanna Gavins presents some of the newest and most influential ideas in cognitive psychology and cognitive linguistics through clearly explained, practical analyses of the work of some of the most popular and celebrated poets currently writing in the British Isles. Through analysis of works by Jo Bell, Simon Armitage, Sinead Morrissey, John Burnside, Alice Oswald and Kate Tempest she demonstrates the practical use of cognitive frameworks as a means of understanding poetry and its effects. Gavins examines cutting edge concepts in cognition including world-building, conceptual integration, embodiment, and distributed cognition and develops our understanding of key notions in poetics such as poetic metre, performance, metaphor and intertextuality. Each chapter of the book addresses a central poetic notion or feature of poetic style from an innovative cognitive perspective, shedding new light on established ideas about poetic creativity and language.

World Building represents the state-of-the-discipline in worlds-based approaches to discourse, collected together for the first time. Over the last 40 years the 'text-as-world' metaphor has become one of the most prevalent and productive means of describing the experiencing of producing and receiving discourse. This has been the case in a range of disciplines, including stylistics, cognitive poetics, narratology, discourse analysis and literary theory. The metaphor has enabled analysts to formulate a variety of frameworks for describing and examining the textual and conceptual mechanics involved in human communication, articulating these variously through such concepts as 'possible worlds', 'text-worlds' and 'storyworlds'. Each of these key approaches shares an understanding of discourse as a logically grounded, cognitively and pragmatically complex phenomenon. Discourse in this sense is capable of producing highly immersive and emotionally affecting conceptual spaces in the minds of discourse participants. The chapters examine how best to document and analyze this and this is an essential collection for stylisticians, linguists and narrative theorists.

This title challenges traditional scholarship on absurdist literature, privileging the reader and the genre's stylistic achievements. Since Martin Esslin coined 'the Theatre of the Absurd' to describe experimental drama in the mid-twentieth century, the term 'absurd' has been adopted as a means of discussing a vast array of literary text. Many accounts have focused on the philosophical and thematic concerns of absurd prose fiction, but literary-criticism has failed to agree on the stylistic, generic, and temporal. This volume takes an alternative approach: its core aim is to provide a coherent, linguistically rigorous examination of the discourse features which characterise the absurd in literature. In order to understand how such a critically ill-defined term continues to have value and relevance to a global readership in the twenty-first century it takes as its starting point the readers who regularly use absurd terms and investigates their discussions in online fora, on literary tagging websites, and in face-to-face interactions. It examines a diverse range of literary texts, both prose and poetry. It covers classic and contemporary absurdist texts. It analyses the stylistic characteristics of this body of work using a cognitive-stylistic approach.

World Building represents the state-of-the-discipline in worlds-based approaches to discourse, collected together for the first time. Over the last 40 years the 'text-as-world' metaphor has become one of the most prevalent and productive means of describing the experiencing of producing and receiving discourse. This has been the case in a range of disciplines, including stylistics, cognitive poetics, narratology, discourse analysis and literary theory. The metaphor has enabled analysts to formulate a variety of frameworks for describing and examining the textual and conceptual mechanics involved in human communication, articulating these variously through such concepts as 'possible worlds', 'text-worlds' and 'storyworlds'. Each of these key approaches shares an understanding of discourse as a logically grounded, cognitively and pragmatically complex phenomenon. Discourse in this sense is capable of producing highly immersive and emotionally affecting conceptual spaces in the minds of discourse participants. The chapters examine how best to document and analyze this and this is an essential collection for stylisticians, linguists and narrative theorists.

This title challenges traditional scholarship on absurdist literature, privileging the reader and the genre's stylistic achievements. Since Martin Esslin coined 'the Theatre of the Absurd' to describe experimental drama in the mid-twentieth century, the term 'absurd' has been adopted as a means of discussing a vast array of literary text. Many accounts have focused on the philosophical and thematic concerns of absurd prose fiction, but literary-criticism has failed to agree on the stylistic, generic, and temporal. This volume takes an alternative approach: its core aim is to provide a coherent, linguistically rigorous examination of the discourse features which characterise the absurd in literature. In order to understand how such a critically ill-defined term continues to have value and relevance to a global readership in the twenty-first century it takes as its starting point the readers who regularly use absurd terms and investigates their discussions in online fora, on literary tagging websites, and in face-to-face interactions. It examines a diverse range of literary texts, both prose and poetry. It covers classic and contemporary absurdist texts. It analyses the stylistic characteristics of this body of work using a cognitive-stylistic approach.