Thinking with Literature: Towards a Cognitive Criticism

Abstract

Abstract This book argues that, as literature is among the most powerful and flexible instruments of human thought, it invites a cognitive mode of criticism, one which asserts the priority of individual literary works as unique products of human cognition. The introductory chapter presents some key themes (kinesis, mind-reading, communication, the recognition of life) without technical elaboration. Chapter 2 provides a more systematic account of these themes and their interdisciplinary context, sketching arguments from cognitive psychology, philosophy, linguistics, neuroscience, and evolutionary studies; it discusses the relations between literary and scientific method, the notion of cognition as essentially embodied, and the choice of relevance theory as a viable linguistic model for literary analysis. Chapter 3 returns to the fine grain of literature itself with two close readings. Subsequent chapters provide a detailed account of the notion of 'affordances' and its pertinence to literary study, and an extended reflection on the imagination as a mode of cognition. This opens up two further lines of enquiry: Chapter 6 explores a cognitive approach to literary 'images'; Chapter 7 focuses on cognitive mimesis in a scene from King Lear and an episode from Mme de Lafayette's Princesse de Clèves. A detailed cognitive analysis of Conrad's Lord Jim in Chapter 8 brings together themes of immersion, kinesis, mind-reading, and cognitive dissonance. The final chapter discusses the question of literary values within the cognitive perspective. A 'virtual manifesto for a cognitive approach to literary studies' is offered in lieu of an epilogue.