This book has three distinctive characteristics: (1) It offers a widely interdisciplinary perspective; (2) It provides a comprehensive view of poetry, with groups of chapters on the Sound Stratum of Poetry (rhyme patterns and gestalt theory; metre and rhythm; expressiveness and musicality of speech sounds); the Units-of-Meaning Stratum (semantic representation and information processing, metaphor, rhyme and meaning, literary synaesthesia); the World Stratum; Regulative Concepts (genre, period style, archetypal patterns); the Poetry of Orientation and Disorientation (experiential and mystic poetry versus poetry of emotional disorientation; and the grotesque); the Poetry of Altered States of Consciousness (hypnotic and ecstatic poetry); Critics and Criticism; and Cognitive Poetics vs. Cognitive Linguistics; (3) It goes into minute details of poetic texts, so as to account for subtle intuitions of readers. Updating from the first edition consists of samples from the author's later instrumental study of the rhythmical performance of poetry and the expressiveness of speech sounds; and in three chapters responding to the later work of three cognitive linguists.
General Assumptions -- The Nature of Cognitive Poetics; Mental and Vocal Performance in Poetry Reading; Constructing a Stable World; Structure and Perceived Qualities. The Sound Stratum of Poetry -- Rhyme Patterns, Gestalt Theory and Perceptual Forces; Metre and Rhythm; Delivery Style and Listener Response: An Empirical Study; Expressiveness and Musicality of Speech Sounds. The Units-of-Meaning Stratum -- Semantic Representation and Information Processing; Literary Synaesthesia. The World Stratum -- The Representative Anecdote: Human Contingency. Regulative Concepts -- The Versatile Reader: Style as Open Concept; Style as Diagnosis and as Hypothesis: Archetypal Patterns. Poetry of Orientation & Disorientation -- Space Perception and Poetry of Orientation; poetry of Disorientation; The Grotesque as an Aesthetic Mode. Poetry of Altered States of Consciousness -- Poetry and Altered States of Consciousness; Obtrusive Rhythms and Emotive Crescendo; The Divergent Passage and Ecstatic Poetry. Critics and Criticism -- The Implied Critic's Decision Style; The Critic's Mental Dictionary. Cognitive Poetics and Cognitive Linguistics -- Lakoff's Roads Not Taken; Deixis in Literature: What Isn't Cognitive Poetics?; Comparing Approaches to Versification Style in Cyrano de Bergerac; Index.
