Table of Contents

General Assumptions -- The Nature of Cognitive Poetics; Mental and Vocal Performance in Poetry Reading; Constructing a Stable World; Structure and Perceived Qualities. The Sound Stratum of Poetry -- Rhyme Patterns, Gestalt Theory and Perceptual Forces; Metre and Rhythm; Delivery Style and Listener Response: An Empirical Study; Expressiveness and Musicality of Speech Sounds. The Units-of-Meaning Stratum -- Semantic Representation and Information Processing; Literary Synaesthesia. The World Stratum -- The Representative Anecdote: Human Contingency. Regulative Concepts -- The Versatile Reader: Style as Open Concept; Style as Diagnosis and as Hypothesis: Archetypal Patterns. Poetry of Orientation & Disorientation -- Space Perception and Poetry of Orientation; poetry of Disorientation; The Grotesque as an Aesthetic Mode. Poetry of Altered States of Consciousness -- Poetry and Altered States of Consciousness; Obtrusive Rhythms and Emotive Crescendo; The Divergent Passage and Ecstatic Poetry. Critics and Criticism -- The Implied Critic's Decision Style; The Critic's Mental Dictionary. Cognitive Poetics and Cognitive Linguistics -- Lakoff's Roads Not Taken; Deixis in Literature: What Isn't Cognitive Poetics?; Comparing Approaches to Versification Style in Cyrano de Bergerac; Index.

About the Author

Jay E. Adams (PhD, University of Missouri) is a former director of advanced studies and professor of practical theology at Westminster Theological Seminary, as well as a retired pastor. He has written over fifty books on pastoral ministry, preaching, counseling, Bible study, and Christian living. His books include Competent to Counsel, The Christian Counselor's Manual, and Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage in the Bible.