The influence of anxiety: poetry as a theory of mind
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26565/2218-2926-2013-06-06Keywords:
cognition, emotion, schema, poetry, StevensAbstract
Cognitive researchers are increasingly turning to an examination of the role nonrational elements, like sensations and emotions, play in cognitive processing. Unlike normal language use, poetic language does not simply represent emotions and sensations, it evokes them. Understanding how it does so contributes to understanding the cognitive workings of the mind. Since schemata operate at the intersection of the nonrational preconscious and conscious awareness, a theoretical model that explains how the interrelations of conceptual and emotion schemata in poetry both motivate and convey emotional-sensory feelings can shed light on how those feelings participate in cognition. To show how such a theoretical model works, I conclude with an analysis of a poem by Wallace Stevens, “Domination of Black.”
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Authors, who publish with this journal, accept the following conditions:
The authors reserve the copyright of their work and transfer to the journal the right of the first publication of this work under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY), which allows other persons to freely distribute a published work with mandatory reference to the authors of the original work and the first publication of the work in this journal.
Authors have the right to enter into separate additional agreements for the non-exclusive dissemination of the work in the form in which it was published by this journal (for example, to post the work in the electronic institutions' repository or to publish as part of a monograph), provided that the link to the first publication of the work in this journal is given.
The journal policy allows and encourages the authors to place the manuscripts on the Internet (for example, in the institutions' repositories or on personal websites), both before the presentation of this manuscript to the editorial board and during review procedure, as it contributes to the creation of productive scientific discussion and positively affects the efficiency and dynamics of citing the published work (see The Effect of Open Access).
