23 Pages Posted: 4 Jul 2009

Date Written: 2005

Abstract

In this paper, I consider some of the ways Cognitive Poetics can contribute to the restoration of the humanities as a significant approach to the study of human cognition. In particular, I show in discussing several poems by Dickinson and one by Frost how Cognitive Poetics can 1) account for a reader's comprehension and articulation of the writer's aesthetic achievements; 2) distinguish between prototypical and peripheral readings of a literary text, and evaluate the various interpretations produced by readers; 3) can describe the aesthetic effects of the text itself.