by Arezou Zalipour
Abstract of my PhD thesis that was completed in 2008. Please feel free to contact me if you are interested to know more about my PhD thesis. I am trying to publish it as a book. Your kind suggestions are most welcomed.
An Approach for the Study of Poetic Imagination
Arezou Zalipour, PhD
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An Approach for the Study of Poetic Imagination
Arezou Zalipour, PhD
arezouzalipour@gmail.com
This study examines notions of poetic imagination towards exploring its contemporary representations. It takes its initial point of departure with a historical and conceptual survey that traces the concepts and theories of both imagination and poetic imagination. The literature survey demonstrates that poetic imagination has not been featured in the theories of modern and contemporary poetry, barring the Romantics who celebrated the creative nature of imagination. Therefore, the existing concepts, ideas and theories of poetic imagination are largely unstructured and incoherent concepts inherited by contemporary poets. However, there are some researches on the concept of imagination in poetry in modern and contemporary philosophy and psychology. In the twentieth century, the use of poetic image in philosophical studies as well as the relations between imagination and reality have provided some insights into modern conceptions of poetic imagination. This thesis examines, discusses and collates the principles and concepts relevant to imagination to discover whether these notions can explain and define the nature of poetic imagination in contemporary poetry. Fundamentally, the thesis develops an approach for the exploration of contemporary notions of poetic imagination. The approach is drawn from the existing concepts and theories of imagination and poetic imagination. The approach is constructed featuring the elements of types of images, features of poetic imagination and modes of imagination.
These three categories shape the components of the theoretical framework and also form the three levels of the analytical procedure of the approach. In level one, we look at types of images in a poem which leads us to draw conclusions about features of poetic imagination in level two. In level three, the findings in levels one and two will then help us to determine the apparent and dominant mode of imagination in the poem/text. What should emerge by the end of the analysis is a special opportunity to look at how (creative) imagination is manifested in a poem/text. The approach was applied to a corpus of contemporary poetry in order to show the application of the approach and the way analysis is carried put. The assessment of the approach on a corpus of contemporary poetry was also in an attempt to elucidate the dimensions of relationships between the imagined, the imaged, and the real.
The research identifies that imagination in contemporary poetry moves more towards imaging rather than poetic imagination. In other words, imagination shows greater affinity to imaging in contemporary poetry. The significant contribution of the thesis is that it offers a continuum called Imaginiuum with one end as imaging, and poetic imagination as the other. Imaginiuum is a paradigm that describes contemporary notions of imagination in poetry.
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