The Gestalts of Mind and Text bridges literary studies and cognitive psychology to provide a unique contribution to the field of Cognitive Literary Studies. The book presents an investigation of metaphor in poetic texts, adopting and developing empirical methods used by Gestalt Psychology, while integrating concepts informed by Gestalt Psychology.
The title indicates an intellectual tradition, to be termed the Gestalt of the Mind, that begins with the Würzburg School of Psychology and its subsequent development into Gestalt Psychology, which provides a rich heritage for the field of Cognitive Literary Studies. The title further indicates an intellectual and creative tradition, to be termed the Gestalt of the Text, applied to various literary schools (Medieval, Early Modern, Modernist). Finally, the Gestalt-Interaction Theory of Metaphor delineates the potentialities for different types of readings of poetic metaphor. This book further makes three significant contributions: the first is the focus on the empirical investigation of metaphor in poetic texts; the second is the integration of the aspects of problem-solving, bidirectionality of metaphor, embodied cognition and the grotesque, in analyzing poetic texts and verbal protocols; and the third is the focus on various literary traditions, spanning languages and periods.
The goal of this book is to present an interdisciplinary study of the Gestalts of Mind and Text. This will be of interest to a varied audience, including cognitive psychologists, literary scholars, researchers in aesthetics, scholars of metaphor and those with an interest in intellectual history.
Chapter One: Gestalt Psychology and Cognitive Literary Studies
Chapter Two: Aspects and Methodology of a Cognitive Literary Study
Chapter Three: John Donne. Songs and Sonets: "The Flea"
Chapter Four: John Donne. Songs and Sonets: "The Bait" Revisited
Chapter Five: John Donne. Holy Sonnets: "At the Round Earth’s Imagined Corners"
Chapter Six: Dan Pagis. Late Leisure: "You Walk Inside Old Street Clocks"
Bibliography
Biography
Chanita Goodblatt is a Professor in the Department of Foreign Literatures & Linguistics at Ben-Gurion University. She works on English, American and Israeli poetry, focusing on the use of Bakhtinian discourse, as well as on the cognitive dimensions of metaphor.
Joseph Glicksohn is a Professor in the Department of Criminology, and in the Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, at Bar-Ilan University. He was trained in cognitive psychology, with a focus on the study of subjective experience and metaphoric thinking.
