Literary Reading, Cognition and Emotion: An Exploration of the Oceanic Mind

""Many books now touch on relations between literature and cognition, but "Literary reading, cognition and emotion" is simply one of the very best in this growing genre. Michael Burke has a wonderful eye for the meanings and heartfelt beauties of literature, and combines this with an incredible grasp of the latest findings from cognitive science. He offers new theoretical insights on what makes literature so engaging and why literary works are an excellent source for understanding the breadth and depth of the oceanic mind. Take the plunge and reap the pleasures of this exciting new book." Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr. Professor, University of California, Santa Cruz" ""This is a deep, provocative and wide-ranging book. Because I am one of them, I simply know thatstylisticians, discourse linguists and literary theorists will benefit greatly from what it has to say on cognitive neuroscience." Peter Verdonk, Emeritus Professor of Stylistics, University of Amsterdam" ""Burke's erudite, lucid exposition of recent affective neuroscience is accessible for those new to the field, but so systematic and learned that even specialists are likely to find it valuable. Burke introduces and synthesizes cutting edge research in a way that provides new insights into literary reading. This is one of the best books in the recent wave of cognitive approaches to literature." Patrick Colm Hogan, Professor, Department of English and Program in Cognitive Science, University of Connecticut" "This work seeks to chart what happens in the embodied minds of engaged readers when they read literature. Despite the recent stylistic, linguistic, and cognitive advances that have been made in text-processing methodology and practice, very little is known about this cultural-cognitive process and especially about the role that emotion plays. Burke's theoretical and empirical study focuses on three central issues: the role emotions play in a core cognitive event like literary text processing; the kinds of bottom-up and top-down inputs most prominently involved in the literary reading process; and what might be happening in the minds and bodies of engaged readers when they experience intense or heightened emotions: a phenomenon sometimes labelled "reader epiphany." This study postulates that there is a free-flow of bottom-up and top-down affective, cognitive inputs during the engaged act of literary reading, and that reading does not necessarily begin or end when our eyes apprehend the words on the page. Burke argues that the literary reading human mind might best be considered both figuratively and literally, not as computational or mechanical, but as oceanic."--BOOK JACKET.

Michael Burke is Associate Professor of Rhetoric, Pedagogy and English at the Roosevelt Academy Middelburg (Utrecht University). His publications include Contextualised Stylistics (with Stockwell and Bex). He is the current Chair of the International Poetics and Linguistics Association (PALA).