Cognitive Literary Theory

“The De-Composition of Writing in A Passage to India.” Journal of Modern Literature. 29:3 (2006): 1-18.

by tony jackson

“‘Literary Interpretation’ and Cognitive Literary Studies.” Invited Response for Special Issue The Cognitive Turn?: A Debate on Interdisciplinarity. Poetics Today. 24:2 (Summer 2003): 191-205.

by tony jackson

“Questioning Interdisciplinarity: Cognitive Science, Evolutionary Psychology, and Literary Criticism.” Poetics Today. 21:2 (Summer 2000): 319-347.

by tony jackson

“Explanation, Interpretation, and Close-Reading: the Progress of Cognitive Poetics.” Poetics Today. 26:3 (Fall 2005): 171-185.

by tony jackson

Against Literary Darwinism

by Jonathan Kramnick

Alan Richardson. The Neural Sublime: Cognitive Theories and Romantic Texts (2010).

by Peter Heymans

Review published in Romanticism 18.1 (2012): 127-28.

Literacy, Competence and Meaning-Making: a Human Sciences Approach

by Maria Nikolajeva

First steps towards a rhetorical psychology of literary interpretation

by Daniel Allington

Published in Journal of Literary Semantics 35 (2), 2006

This paper asks what the familiar conception of literary interpretation as socially situated and rhetorical might mean... more This paper asks what the familiar conception of literary interpretation as socially situated and rhetorical might mean on the cognitive level. Rejecting the prescriptiveness, individualism, and use of invented examples that theorisations of reading based on so-called ‘cognitive linguistics’ have involved, it attempts to develop Michael Billig's model of thought as argument into a theory of interpretation adequate to the complexities of actual reader discourse within one particular social context (academia). A detailed intertextual analysis is carried out to provide qualitative empirical support for this theory, showing how four critics read Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness by debating its correct interpretation.

If your institution does not subscribe to the Journal of Literary Semantics, you can ask me for a copy by following this link:

http://oro.open.ac.uk/cgi/request_doc?docid=5969

Re-reading the script: a discursive appraisal of the use of the ‘schema’ in cognitive poetics

by Daniel Allington

Published in Working with English 2, 2005

This paper argues that what at first sight appear to be claims about the minds of readers can often be better... more This paper argues that what at first sight appear to be claims about the minds of readers can often be better understood as arguments about the qualities of texts. It is both a critique of schema theory as applied to literary analysis and a study in the rhetoric of literary evaluation.

Two literary readings that employ schema theory are analysed: Sara Mills's reading of Martin Amis's novel, London Fields, and Guy Cook's reading of Edward Bond's poem, 'First World War Poets'. It is argued that the rhetorical effectiveness of these writings is largely independent of the validity or otherwise of schema theory.

This paper can be downloaded free of charge:

http://oro.open.ac.uk/15336/1/Allington_2005.pdf